The McGlashans: The Patriarch and the Butterfly Princess.

[nomad]

The McGlashans: The Patriarch and the Butterfly Princess.

The Article will consist of two other parts.

2. Ximena the Princess Butterfly Farmer.

3. The McGlashan Legacy.

The Patriarch; Charles Fayette McGlashan (1847-1931)

By the time the school teacher, Charles Fayette McGlashan moved to the violent and lawless railway and mining town of Truckee in Sierra Nevada Mountains of California during 1872, he was already corresponding with some great American lepidopterists. Reverend Charles J. S. Bethune, founder of the Entomological Society of Canada, W. Henry Edwards, Albert Koeberle and J. J. Rivers, all of whom recommended books that furthered McGlashan's study.

McGlashan wrote of the kindness of the English born stage actor, the renown Californian lepidopterist Henry Edwards who visited McGlashan at his Truckee home." I shall never forget your kindness in robbing your own cabinet to swell mine". Edwards who had a theater company in San Francisco, was regarded as one of the most kind and generous of the pioneer American lepidopterists.

Henry Edwards and Mcglashan hunted butterflies together in the meadows above Truckee. Edwards taught his new friend Charles to sugar for moths with a thick syrup, stale beer, brown sugar and a shot of Jamaica rum. Together they spread their bait on trees growing along the Truckee River, returning later to find a good mix of species sipping at the sugar edges. Mcglashan enjoyed this type of night time adventure, he recorded " One is thrilled with excitement at almost every step taken in the darkness amid the rustling bushes and trees along the river bank. There are surprises and half-adventures, such as the sudden whirl of a bird's wing or the crackling of a dead branch, and the gloom and solitude tend to make these harmless episodes almost tragic. The least noise and prize specimens will be sailing safely above your head".

Charles McGlashan, was to become a mover and shaker in the small pond that was Truckee, which had up grown up around the railway. McGlashan would become the Patriarch of a large family of eight daughters and one son. Leaving teaching, McGlashan became a skilled defense Attorney and at others times he was an editor of various newspapers. Above the town, McGlashan ploughed his money into building an elaborate mansion, the extraordinary 'Crystal Palace' with a footbridge leading to a similar building, his Rocking Stone Museum that was built on a glacial feature known as the Rocking Stone. Looking up at this strange and elaborate piece of architecture, there was no doubt who was now Truckee's leading citizen and the Patriarch like to sit in his favourite black leather chair gazing out through his palace windows on the town beneath and to his beloved historical and butterfly collecting area, the ' Donner Mountain' high up in the Sierra Nevada.


In a more shameful period in the town's history, was McGlashan's involvement in the local Truckee Caucasian League, who aims were to rid Truckee of its Chinese population that had grown up along the Truckee River in a shanty town. Some used terror tactics, in which they bought fire and brimstone to these unfortunate people. The Chinese came with the building of the Trans-continental Railroad but later some townsfolk called them the yellow peril, cheap labour to businesses, causing resentment with the natives and there was talk of opium dens. McGlashan would not adhere to violence although he did advocate that all the local merchants would neither sell goods nor food to that ethnic population and they had no option but to pack up and leave. In just ten weeks they were gone.

Charles McGlashan had many interests besides being a passionate bug collector. He studied geology, astrology and the history of the Truckee area. Charles McGlashan would become an innovator of introducing Winter Sports to Western America, promoting games in the Truckee area on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

McGlashan is perhaps most well known for in bringing the tragic story of the 'Donner Party' to the American public. The Donner Party were among the first emigrant pioneers to travel from the east to the promised land of California. After a long struggle across prairies and over mountain ranges, they climbed up into Sierra Nevada mountains to the Donner Pass lying at 2151 meters. The party found that the pass was blocked by snow and the party of 80 built a few log cabins at two camps near Donner lake. Trapped in the icy grip of the 1846-1847 winter, many perished through starvation and cold, some of those that survived resorted to cannibalism. It is a tragic and macabre story that McGlashan first told in his critically acclaimed book published in 1879 ' A History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra'. Online here

archive.org/details/historyofdonnerp01cfmc

McGlashan became captivated with the misadventure of the Donner Party and sought out the survivors to interview them for his book. He spent many days searching the Donner lake area for Donner Party relics and those he found he kept in his museum along with his collection of butterflies that was rumoured to consist of 20,000 specimens. His first wife Jennie, said the " real tragedy of the Donner Party was her " and for a time they separated and later divorced.


Charles McGlashan was an imposing figure and in later life, he had a white receding hair line and a notable icy stare. He often rode out from Truckee on his horse to collect butterflies or historical relics in the meadows of the nearby Mountains. It was a good place to spend his day's butterfly collecting. Donner Mountain has one of the most diverse butterfly populations in America with 115 species recorded, 62 species in one day. Considering the British Isles have a mere 58 species that is some a truly marvellous array of butterflies.

He found new species too. In 1885, McGlashan discovered the butterfly J. J. Rivers named Melitaea macglashanii, 1888. Today his discovery is recognized as a subspecies of Euphydryas chalcedona. See butterfliesofamerica.com/euphydryas_chalcedona_macglashanii_specimens2.htm.

McGlashan was able to breed a good series of the new butterfly and he is also remembered by the Ghost Moth of the Hepialidae family that he also discovered; Hepialus macglashani Edwards, 1886 which is now known as Gazoryctra macglashani.

There has been some confusion regarding Charles McGlashan large collection of butterflies. Several sources mention that he had in the region of 20,000 specimens. Around the year 1900, McGlashan patented his own early design of riker mount wall cases and he made a large artistic display consisting of exotics and native Sierra Nevada species to thrill the visitors to his Museum. McGlashan exchanged many Sierra Nevada species for exotics with collectors from different parts of the world. After McGlashan died in 1931, with his wife living until 1932, the butterfly wall display was still in his Rocking Stone museum and survived the fire which destroyed the main house during 1935. Later, this large wall display was on view at the Nevada County Courthouse. Exposed to light for many years, it is in remarkably good condition and consists of around 1200 specimens. This fragment of the McGlashan collection can now be viewed in the Emigrant Trail Museum in Donner State Park near Truckee, California.

Professor Art Shapiro, the American butterfly expert mentioned in an article on the Butterflies of the Sierra Nevada Mountains that " A tiny remnant of the McGlashan collection is at Donner Memorial State Park. Thousands of McGlashan specimens are in museums all over the world. Unfortunately, almost everything is labelled “Truckee,” regardless of where they were caught." These include many of those specimens that were sold by his daughter Ximena.

For twelve years between 1875 and 1887 Charles McGlashan sent many of his moth specimens to Henry Edwards, to add to his collection. The Edwards collection together with those specimens taken by Charles McGlashan were the foundation for the lepidoptera collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. During the years 1884-1887 that great entomologist, William Henry Edwards of West Virginia received many specimens from McGlashen. W.H. Edwards would in exchange for specimens determine all of McGlashan insects. W.H. Edwards was no relation to Henry Edwards.

E.O. Esig who wrote an obituary of Charles McGlashan in the Pan Pacific Entomologist, Vol 3, 1931 mentioned that McGlashan had a large collection of some 20,000 specimens. In the biography of Charles McGlashan , 'Give Me a Mountain' written by his granddaughter Nona who the McGlashans adopted when their daughter died, the author refers to his artistic wall display comprising 20,000 specimens when in fact there is, as has been mentioned only 1200 specimens. Art Shapiro is doubtful that there was ever the vast amount of specimens as cited by Esig but Charles McGlashan certainly seems to have had a main cabinet collection, although the present whereabouts of the latter are unknown.

Give Me a Mountain: The life of Charles Fayette McGlashan. A biography by his granddaughter Nona McGlashan published originally in 1977, last edition in 1991 can be purchased here

www.amazon.com/Give-mountain-meadow-imaginative-lawyer-editor/dp/0913548413

John Wakefield, an entomologist residing in the Truckee area, wrote a newspaper article about the McGlashan's artistic butterfly display on the collections return to the Donner museum near the town in 1996.

" In January 1996, I was approached with the offer to view and evaluate a collection of lepidoptera, the likes my eyes had never beheld in all my years. Not only to view it, but to repair and restore it as best I could to its magnificent splendor. With magnifying glass in hand, I began slowly to peruse the large collection of approximately 1200 animals, as they are known in entomological terms. The colors were dazzling to the naked eye, and made me wonder how this treasure could be more than a hundred years old. The collection is housed in four wooden panels, hinged together like an Oriental screen. Each panel is divided into 15 sections -- 5 down by 3 across -- each set up individually. The specimens are arranged artistically, without regard to classification or biography. Eight of the individual sections have the specimens on an underlying bottom known as Ryker mount style. Others are displayed on entomological pins. Usually a given section has a large, showy blue (morpho) butterfly as a center piece with smaller decoratively mounted specimens surrounding it. I would say 85% of the display is in good to excellent condition with some loss of pigment (fugitive) in the moths. The value of the collection, of course, cannot be determined at this time, until I have had sufficient time to identify the species. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that surprises are forthcoming as I begin to uncover the identity of all or most of these beauties! "

" Historically, this collection is priceless as it represents a time in our culture never to be seen again. My utmost desire is that this absolutely magnificent collection will inspire future generations to seek education in the sciences of ecology and entomology that deals with these glorious creatures ". The late John Wakefield first became interested in a career in Entomology when he saw a film about Charles McGlashan's daughter, Ximena the butterfly farmer.

Art Shaprio who also reviewed the McGlashan collection when it arrived at the Donner Museum, was less enthusiastic, mentioning that it was of minimal scientific value. The scientist records " I noted no particular rarities, just a fairly random group of exotics with a few nice "oh, mys." Judge for yourself from the photos with Nona's article!. There is a Prepona that might be a "goodie," but one needs to see the underside. The Parnassius are nearly all legally protected now." (Pers Comm March 2016). Shaprio also mentioned there were many of the montane Plebejus saepiolus.
 

[nomad]

Ximena the Princess Butterfly Farmer.

Charles McGlashan inspired his many daughters to study hard and to take up a career and not to rely on their future potential husbands. He reminded them that If their spouse died, they would need a profession to fall back on. Although, the McGlashan children were part of an upper Middle-Class American family there would be no free meal ticket when they reached maturity. Their Patriarch father Charles, had come from a poor farming family where you needed to be a tough cookie to survive.

His second daughter Ximena, pronounced " he may na " and meaning " Princess", started to take an interest in her father's butterfly collecting and as a young girl she took turns with her sisters, leading visitors, often those that were waiting between trains up to her fathers museum. As Ximena reached her late teens, encouraged by her father, she became America's first professional butterfly farmer. America liked young entrepreneurs, especially those that could seemly make money out of a strange occupation when most women from middle-class families either went into a profession of teaching or nursing. With her youthful beauty, Ximena became the darling of the American newspapers and magazines, they called her on account of her name the "Princess Butterfly Farmer". Ximena story even appeared in the New York Times and in other newspapers across the globe. Art Shapiro, who specializes and studies the butterflies of California, wrote an article on Sierra Nevada's butterflies, in which he noted that Ximena McGlashan was a "Gibson Girl", a reference to those women in the early 20th century who came from a good background and were the height of fashion with their piled hair. Ximena was indeed a fashionable beauty and she was articulate, intelligent and helped by her father she soon became a knowledgeable entomologist. Ximena for a few years at least, was able to supply clients across North America and Europe with lepidoptera from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. With the money she earned through her butterfly farming, Ximena was able to put herself through University where she gained a degree in Entomology.


When she was 18 years old in 1912 and had begun her Butterfly farming and collecting enterprise , Ximena was interviewed for an article that was published in the San Francisco Call, she said "I graduated from the San Jose normal school in June last, and about the middle of July saw my father teaching one of his grandchildren how to catch and preserve a butterfly and how to rear butterflies from caterpillars. Expecting to teach school, I thought it would be well to know a little of this curious business and wanted to be taught the rudiments, so I could tell them to my pupils. Imagine my surprise and incredulity when I was told that I could make more money from the outset than I could by teaching school".

"Challenging my father to prove this statement, he sugared a dozen trees down by the Truckee river, showed me how to convert half a dozen quart fruit jars with tin covers into cyanide bottles, rigged me up a lantern, and showed me how to take moths from the trees at night by placing the mouth of the bottle over the flies as they sipped the sugar on the trees, and I began work. This was July 15, and on the first day of August I shipped away 1,500 moths and butterflies and received a check by return mail for $75, the first money I had ever earned in my life. Meantime I was taught to gather every worm and caterpillar and feed them in bottles, boxes and barrels, and was told how to get eggs from moths and butterflies and so rear the perfect flies. In 10 weeks I have shipped 10,400 flies and received therefore a flat price of 6 cents each, or $520, and I now have on hand 20,000 eggs, larvae and pupae which will hatch Into flies next year. "Flies" include moths and butterflies".

"I have exchanged the lantern for a Baldwin miner's lamp, costing $2, which burns carbide. They can be obtained from any automobile supply house, give a very bright light, are easy to carry and do not extinguish even in a stiff wind. I have learned to search bushes both day and night for larvae, beating the bushes at night with my hands or a stick, the larvae dropping off Into a tray or into a sheet spread underneath the foliage. In the daytime I catch butterflies with a net, collect eggs, larvae and cocoons from trees and flowers and shrubs and gather fresh feed for my colony of worms. It keeps me busy from 5 o'clock In the morning until 10 at night, but the work is light, full of outdoor air and sunshine, replete with interest and delightful beyond expression. I have taught five pupils and have been well repaid by having them help me with my work and give me their catches. Only the perfect specimens are salable".

"Thanks to the accounts which newspapers have published of my work I have received scores and hundreds of letters from men and women who wish instructions as to how to breed moths and butterflies."

" A feature of night collecting which most women dread, except where the work can be done in the dooryard or close to home is being out in the dark alone. It is not always convenient to have company, and is much better to go alone, because any unnecessary noise will cause the moths to fly away. Being a mountaineer, I am never a bit afraid to go anywhere that my work calls me and have frequently been miles from home in the darkness and I have yet to meet with an unpleasant episode. Everybody knows that I am attending to my legitimate business and I am never molested. The newest make of the automatic revolver is a companion that banishes fear; especially as I am a pretty good shot".

"A sugaring route includes a few trees and is hardly more than a hundred yards in length, as a rule but occasionally one lays out a route which can only be reached with a bicycle over a lonely mountain trail. Such routes sometimes yield the rarest catches. Our altitude is about 6000 feet but many of the beat collecting localities are more than 7000 feet. We have single moths and butterflies which are worth 5 dollars a piece and one variety of beetle brings 5 dollars a specimen".

The full article can be read here: San Francisco Sunday Call 1912.

chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1912-10-27/ed-1/seq-4.pdf


Her father had been right, through his genius at generating publicity Ximena was making a success of her collecting and butterfly farming business. In the first year of her butterfly farm, the Illinois butterfly dealer 'Dr William Barnes' bought most of her entire stock. In the summer she was also teaching pupils entomology and through her own Magazine " the Butterfly Farmer " she was advertising correspondent courses in butterfly farming. With her father as the editor, this was a very useful magazine published in 12 issues during 1913 and 1914. She wrote of her correspondence lessons, " My greatest aim has been to inspire a love for the beautiful in entomology. I think this is why my work has attracted attention and why it has received widespread publicity. My greatest wish has been to add happiness and sunshine to the lives of my pupils".

Ximena described her Butterfly Farming in the following page of her magazine.

Ximena also wrote in her magazine " It must seem absurd to old entomologists that "a slip of a girl," as Gladwin of the Hearst papers calls me, should attempt to publish a magazine. It must seem more absurd that having only studied the science fifteen months she should advertise a complete correspondence course in entomology. If this were the entire story it would be absurd."

"Almost at the outset I discovered that anyone who attempts to break into the charmed circle of the entomologists will find few guides. All the books are printed for scientists, not beginners. The novice must grope his way as best he can. The learned men who might help him are deeply absorbed in biological problems which engross their time to the exclusion of almost everything else. The very best that the beginner can hope to do is to fall into the clutches of some collector who will teach him just enough about collecting to get his specimens. If he tries to sell there is no one to assist him in finding honorable purchasers and he meets with obstacles and disappointments".

Ximena's magazine, The Butterfly Farmer was a warm personal magazine, providing many helpful tips on collecting and breeding for those beginning in entomology. There were many articles written by Ximena and others by very notable American lepidopterists. In her magazine, Ximena provided not only a list of reliable dealers that would purchase your specimens but a similar list of honorable dealers that sold them. One of those listed was a certain British Butterfly Farmer " L. W. Newman " to which she added " buys only British".


The Butterfly Farmer can be viewed here and makes interesting reading.

archive.org/details/butterfl111219131914mcgl

By the time Ximena was studying at Stanford University for her degree in Entomology , Europe was locked in the deadly struggle of World War One. Ximena wrote in a letter to a friend during 1915, " Dear Fay Northcott: Today I am home from the University for the first time since your letter came. I remember you well and am glad to renew our friendship. Your eloquent letter causes me to take a great interest in Jamie. By this mail I am sending a complete set of my lessons as a present to him, also the Food-plant charts. If he will study he can do butterfly farming indoors by having his brothers bring him the food for his caterpillars. I will gladly write him regarding anything he fails to understand. The war has demoralized our markets for Europe is our best buyer. I do not think America will be involved, but no one can tell. My butterfly farm is sending me through college and I should graduate next year. It is a charming avocation. I trust you will get interested while helping your friend. Your sincere friend, Ximena McGlashan".

In the October 1916 issue of the Magazine " A Guide to Nature " Published by the Agassiz Association named in honour of the anti evolutionist, the Swiss scientist Louis Agassiz, a portrait of Ximena appeared with the editor's note " We take pleasure in offering to the reader the excellent portrait of Miss McGlashan, the Butterfly Farmer." A short letter from Ximena was published with the portrait. "I graduated from Stanford University in May, having paid my way through college by my butterfly farming, Since my graduation I have been resting as much as my correspondents have permitted. My future is problematical at present, as the war has well-nigh ruined the markets. There is still good money to be made in rare moths, and I may devote the future to the rearing of these for the market. Many of my pupils have become ardent entomologist's regardless of the pecuniary profits. One sent me a moth today that I am sure is new to science".

The very eccentric entomologist and bigamist Harrison Dyar entertained the notion of proposing to Ximena (letter of March 8, 1915) but nothing came of it. (See Marc Epstein, "Moths, Myths and Mosquitoes," a biography of Dyar 2016).

Ximena McGlashan's future lay in the arms of John Cary Howard from Berkeley, Alameda Country, California. A short note was published in " A Guide to Nature " in February 1917. " We take pleasure in recording the marriage of the Butterfly Farmer. She is to spend the winter in Oakland but beyond that her future plans are not decided. She has done much to further an interest in the study of butterflies and moths and has done good work for science. We sincerely hope that she will continue her missionary labours in science and her husband, if not already a naturalist, will be lured into these charming realms in which his youthful bride has been exploring for many years".

There the story of America's first Butterfly Farmer role in Entomology ends. Although she had a degree in Entomology, Ximena seems to have been content to settle into the life of the wife of her military husband who had chosen a career as an officer in the army and later would become Professor of Military Science at UC Berkeley until his death during 1952. With her marriage to Howard, Ximena McGlashan faded into the pages of history.

[nomad]

The McGlashan Legacy

With his mass of long hair and beard, Art Shapiro looks every inch the public's idea of a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California UC Davis. Shapiro has monitored the diverse butterfly fauna butterfly populations in the Truckee area on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains for several decades. I asked him his opinion of Charles McGlashan and his daughter Ximena. He wrote "Old CF was a "promoter" and a genius at generating publicity, and like many flacks since, was not always 100% credible. I am not entirely charmed by the man. He was one of the organizers of the (successful) economic boycott designed to force the Chinese out of Truckee after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, an accomplishment his family no longer boasts of. He claimed the credit for accomplishing it without violence, however. See the excellent history of the persecution of the Chinese in California, "Driven Out" by Jean Pfaelzer, chapter 5. I grant that he and Ximena provided a valuable service by meeting visiting entomologists at the train in Truckee and taking them out on horseback to collect. (An amateur botanist who ranched at Sierraville and who was a Civil War veteran did the same thing for visiting botanists--including the incredibly distinguished Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, friend of Darwin and director of Kew Gardens.) I don't think of CF as a "scientist" at all. And I am not aware that Ximena found anything new. As my "False Faunas" article says, Newcomer in the Tahoe Basin was much more "scientific." Both were amateurs, but CF's style, while very much in tune with the ethos of the time and place, did not dispose to scientific contributions. The "Melitaea" (now Euphydryas) named for CF by Rivers is the Sierran East Slope entity from Alpine County to near the Nevada/Sierra County line. It is quite variable, and inter grades with E. chalcedona sierra, the very red high-altitude subspecies, around the Kingsbury Grade east of South Lake Tahoe. Despite the type-locality being "Truckee," it is not found close to Truckee today. The type was apparently lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Ximena by tradition (still alive in Berkeley!) was a much-appreciated hostess".

Art shapiro did concede in his article " False Faunas" published in the American Entomologist, Winter 1998, regarding a list of Sierra Nevada lepidoptera published in Vol. 1, no. 8 (April 1914) of The Butterfly Farmer, pp. 125-131 that " The list was unsigned, but presumably by Ximena McGlashan, who is treated as the author of all unattributed material in The Butterfly Farmer. Because the magazine is rare in libraries (and is part of the "gray" literature [i.e., unrefereed, unofficial]), it rarely has been noticed or cited. Yet it is potentially of great value because there is only one comparable Sierran list of the period (Newcomer 1910) ".

One of the major disappointments to scientists like Shapiro was the lack of any precise data on the McGlashan specimens, how much more could have been learned with more information but at least there specimens are identifiable with the locality 'Truckee'. During this period many collectors placed no data at all on their specimens.

Charles McGlashan and Ximena as Shapiro as mentioned, did provide a valuable service to many visiting lepidopterists. Among those they guided on horseback collecting trips in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains were such eminent lepidopterists as Berthold Neumogen, Gamble Geddes and Herman Strecker.

Perhaps Ximena's greatest legacy, was to inspire youthful beginners such as John Wakefield to have a lifelong passion for entomology and Charles McGlashan in providing numerous specimens to men such as Rivers, Edwards and W.H. Edwards that furthered the study and known distribution of American lepidoptera.

The McGlashans may be unknown to most American lepidopterists and they may not be placed among the 'Great Scientific Entomologists. However, like so many other lesser known mortals, the McGlashans are an essential part of the history of the fascinating study of American lepidoptera and certainly nonetheless interesting.

As the McGlashans exchanged and sold thousands of specimens, check your labels, you may have a piece of American Entomological History in your collection. If you have, please do show them. It would be nice to see some of the individual McGlashan specimens.

Acknowledgements. I would like to thank Professor Art Shapiro for taking the time to answer my emails and questions and providing other valuable articles and information.

[mygos]

Thank you Peter !

Very interesting story, especially as I have never heard of this McGlashan family ...

A+, Michel

[nomad]

Thank you Michel. I decided to post the three parts together. So members who do not have the time to read it all, might like to pop back now and again. I guess I enjoyed writing and researching the McGlashans more than any other article that I have written. They are off the radar so to speak. Fascinating part of American Entomological History. I do hope that others might enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

[bobw]

Interesting article Peter.   I've come across the name once or twice whilst researching the North American Colias but knew nothing about them.  It's very interesting seeing a photo of Art Shapiro who I've corresponded with many times but never seen before!

Bob

[nomad]

I am pleased that you found the article of interest Bob. I would imagine that as the McGlashans traded and sold many specimens, there might be number of them in private collections. Their specimens as mentioned would be labelled " Truckee ".

[deliasfanatic]

Great article, Peter. I've never heard of the McGlashans before now. About 10 years ago, I drove the road to Donner Pass when I crossed from Nevada into California. I stopped for a brief walk at the top of the pass, which is a beautiful area at high elevation, but it was just a short stop and I went on without knowing of the museum and the area's entomological history. A good reason to go back one day!

[nomad]

Thank you Danny. Glad to here that you enjoyed this piece on American Entomological History and that you have been to this beautiful area. 

[nomad]

and few little edits

[wollastoni]

A brilliant article about a family of entomologists I didn't know.
Thanks a lot Peter !

[joee30]

That was a very interesting read. Being that I live in Reno, and have collected Euphdryas chalcedona mcglashani at a place called Mayberry Park here in town, this was more of an eye opener, and motivation to hit the Donner Summit area this summer. ?

[nomad]

I have no idea if you can collect in the Donner Summit area without a permit, as far as I know it is part of the Tahoe National Forest, which has its own Rangers.

[nomad]

I am glad that you enjoyed the read joee and Olivier. 

[Paul K]

Mar 28, 2016 8:20:16 GMT nomad said:

I have no idea if you can collect in the Donner Summit area without a permit, as far as I know it is part of the Tahoe National Forest, which has its own Rangers.

Collecting in National Forest is not forbidden , only state parks and national parks as far as I know. Same in Canada provincial and national parks are prohibited but provincial forests are good to collect.

Paul