Plumas County’s beauty, its wildness and its wealth of public land all make it potentially appealing as a recreation destination. For those reasons, many look to tourism to help improve the local economy, and fill the gaps left behind as the timber industry has gradually contracted. But how much tourism traffic is too much?
The mixed economic potential of tourism, recreation and travel
“Tourism can be and is a powerful catalyst for sustainable economic growth in rural areas like Plumas County, driving investment and community vitality,” said Susan Bryner, chair of the Feather River Tourism Association. Tourism has become the second fastest growing industry in the United States, supporting 1 in 9 jobs, she said.
At 1.84%, hospitality and tourism have among the highest projected growth rates locally as well, according to the 2023-2027 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy for the Sierra Economic Development District, which includes Plumas, Sierra, Nevada, Placer and El Dorado counties. But jobs in the industry also pay the lowest average wage across all the industry clusters identified in the report.
The CEDS references a 2019 report by Headwaters Economics that suggests recreation “may make the difference between gaining or losing population … in rural counties.” Recreation, the report said, attracts both visitors — who help to support businesses in the short term — and new residents, who may themselves become business owners, entrepreneurs or workers, fueling the local economy in the longer term.
And when it comes to tourism dollars, a little goes a long way. Research shows that increased visitor spending on lodging and dining not only benefits tourism-related sectors but also has a multiplier effect, generating additional sales for local businesses, said Bryner. ”For every dollar spent by visitors, an additional 93 cents circulates within the local economy,” she said.
Push and pull
Saylor Flett sees a paradox in Plumas County’s attitude toward tourism. Flett is the program coordinator for the Outdoor Recreation Leadership Program at Feather River College, where he has been an instructor since 2008. There is, he observed, a “strong expressed desire to build tourism, support local business and bring in people with a shared interest in these wild places.” Simultaneously, he said, “the same people often feel threatened by the lifestyle change that comes with growth.” And it’s understandable: residents have an inherent interest in protecting the qualities that drew them to Plumas County in the first place, he said. Both isolation and overexposure pose risks.
Rick Stock, founder of the ORL Program, who retired in 2020, argues that the right amount of tourism supports resources that benefit local residents as well as visitors. For example, tourism helps bars and restaurants have a better chance of surviving. Too much tourism, though, transforms communities into places locals don’t want to be. The goal is for recreation to contribute to the local economy without dominating it.
The goal is for recreation to contribute to the local economy without dominating it.
Rick Stock, founder of Outdoor Recreation Leadership Program at Feather River College
Diversity is the key, said Stock: “We’re a county seat, we have a college, we have a mill… I think that’s really healthy for a community.”
‘Just far enough’
The U.S. Forest Service occupies and manages 1,256,640 acres, more than 75% of the total area in the county. That’s rare, said Matt McCourtney, the Johnsville owner and operator of Lost Sierra Fly Guide. “For outdoor recreation you really can’t beat that. That’s almost like Alaska numbers,” he said. And unlike many public lands, much of the forest is unmediated, added Flett. There are few raffles or quotas, permits or reservations required of visitors.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. also owns 35,177 acres of land in Plumas County. All but 200 of them are protected by conservation easements through the Feather River Land Trust, said Paul Moreno, marketing and communications principal for PG&E. These conservation easements guarantee public access in perpetuity, and prevent commercial development with some exceptions.
While Plumas may lack the iconic Sierra scenery made famous by Tahoe and Yosemite, it is undeniably beautiful. The Middle Fork Feather River is one of the original eight wild and scenic rivers designated in the 1968 National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, along with the Rio Grande, Rogue and Wolf rivers. Its location at the juncture of the Sierra and Cascade mountain ranges makes the Feather River a uniquely powerful watershed. For those who prefer a peaceful, rugged experience to the traffic, crowds and expense of those more famous California destinations, the Lost Sierra provides a compelling alternative.
But even that has a double-edged quality. McCourtney jokes that Plumas County is “just far enough” — just far enough to escape the crowds, but also just far enough to be a little daunting for visitors.
Creating points of entry to sports and spaces
Stock started Feather River College’s Outdoor Recreation Leadership Program in 2000, inspired by a similar program at Western Colorado University. In the 1990s, he said, adventure tourism got “a big shot in the arm” due to a confluence of factors including economic prosperity, enthusiasm for outdoor culture and the sheer size of the baby boom generation. Quincy was just a little behind that curve. FRC’s ORL Program was perfectly timed to fill a gap for outdoor adventure recreation in this community by making it more accessible.
Many outdoor recreation activities have an intimidatingly high barrier to entry, said Flett: equipment is expensive, and the perceived risk can be higher than the actual risk. At $46 a unit, with free equipment and a 6-to-1 student-teacher ratio, ORL courses offer students the opportunity to try new activities in a safe and affordable way.
That’s emblematic of a larger trend. New and “casual” participants are driving growth in the outdoor recreation space, according to the 2023 Outdoor Industry Report. Last year, a record 175.9 million Americans participated in outdoor recreation; 7.7 million tried one or more recreation activities for the first time. At the same time, the core group of “very frequent” participants — those who take part in outdoor activities 51 times a year or more — has been in a long pattern of decline. “Casual” participants — those who participate in outdoor recreation between four and 24 times year — made up 40% of all participants
Plumas County has become more popular as a tourism destination as activities like backpacking, backcountry skiing, mountain biking and whitewater kayaking have become more popular in general. But it remains relatively quiet compared with other towns in the West, said Stock.
It’s up to the community to decide where we want recreation to occur and then develop those sites in a deliberate way to make them more accessible, he said: “There is a lot of control.” Examples include development at trailheads, such as bathrooms and parking for mountain bikers. Improvements could include river access for whitewater enthusiasts that doesn’t involve sprinting across State Route 70 and bushwhacking through waist-high blackberry brambles with a kayak. “The Forest Service is already doing some of that,” said Stock. “There is a toilet at the top of Mount Hough now.”
“Our goal was just to bring some balance.”
Dave Steindorf, California hydropower specialist for American Whitewater
One example of selective recreational redevelopment is the introduction of recreational releases on the North Fork Feather River in October 2000. Historically, the North Fork was “one of the best rainbow trout fisheries on the West Coast,” said Dave Steindorf, California hydropower specialist for American Whitewater, a nonprofit river conservation organization. And, were it not for the hydropower dams in the Feather River Canyon, today it would probably be the premiere whitewater destination on the West Coast, he said.
Steindorf was instrumental in the four-year negotiation process that resulted in quadrupling the base flows on the North Fork and introducing monthly recreational releases. “We all like our lights to go on and hydropower is part of that. Our goal was just to bring some balance,” he said. As a result of the agreement, thousands of people boat on the Feather each year, Steindorf said. In the early years, the organization informally monitored traffic on the river, observing 50–300 boaters on the river each day during recreational releases. The Feather River Festival, held each September, is the largest in the state, with over 1,000 attendees.
Another example of strategic recreation development is the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship’s Connected Communities project. It aims to build 600 miles of multiuse trail linking 15 mountain communities. Reno, Susanville, and Truckee serve to anchor the trail system, said SBTS general manager Kyla Pascucci. These relatively large towns already attract people with disposable income who like to recreate. The Connected Communities trail system aims to entice them slightly north, into small towns like Greenville, Quincy, Portola, Taylorsville, Chester and Graeagle. SBTS is currently holding a series of community meetings to present the Connected Communities master plan.
People travel to rural regions for many reasons, said Pascucci: to recreate, to experience culture, to enjoy a less stressful, more peaceful way of life. Each community in the system has something special to offer visitors. It’s the best-case scenario, said Stock: a unique recreation project that flatters the natural resource base. Stock formerly served on the board of SBTS.
Even with the work already underway, there’s still plenty of potential for growth, said Stock. There are lots of small guide businesses, but not many larger outfitters in Plumas, Lassen and Sierra counties, and none at all on the North Fork. Forest Service permitting could help to change that. We’ll hear from local guides and outfitters in a future story.
Choosing our own adventure
One of the things that impressed Steindorf when he first became involved in advocacy was how easy it is to participate as a member of the public. “I was amazed that I could just show up and people had to listen,” he recalled. The same is true of all projects that utilize public land. The SBTS has conducted extensive surveying, said Pascucci, including asking participants to mark up maps with notation on where trails should and shouldn’t exist. When it comes to recreational development, Plumas County can choose its own adventure.
