One of Lake Tahoe’s most popular state parks will reopen next spring after being closed for three years for repairs.
D.L. Bliss State Park, on the lake’s southwest shoreline near Emerald Bay, will reopen on May 21, state park officials announced this week, with campground reservations available for booking six months out beginning Friday at ReserveCalifornia.com.
“We’re thrilled to welcome visitors back,” said Rich Adams, acting superintendent of state parks’ Sierra District. “Thank you to the public for your patience.”
The 2,100-acre park, which has 4 miles of scenic beaches, towering pine forests, trails, huge smooth boulders and 168 campsites, is named for Duane Leroy Bliss, a timber, mining and railroad magnate who arrived in San Francisco at age 17 from Massachusetts seeking opportunity during the Gold Rush. After he amassed a fortune, following his death in 1907, his family donated 744 acres to the state in 1929 to establish the lakefront park.
The park has been closed since June 2023. Water mains, water tanks and a fire hydrant system, much of which was installed by President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, was failing and needed to be replaced.
“With the old pipes there were so many leaks,” said Michael Myers, executive director of the Sierra State Parks Foundation, a non-profit group that helps support parks in the Lake Tahoe area. “Things had corroded and broken over time. State parks has to maintain the water supply, not only for drinking but for fire suppression. There were too many leaks, too many issues. Eventually you have to bite the bullet and stop putting Band Aids on the problem and fix it.”
The job ran into some setbacks, however.
It was originally planned to cost $2.8 million and take one summer to complete. But the Southern California contractor who was awarded the low bid encountered difficulties installing 3 miles of water lines. Workers dug a six-foot deep trench across the park, but ran behind schedule, encountering strict rules from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency that prohibit grading or digging after Oct. 15 each year to prevent winter rains from washing silt and dirt into the lake and threatening its famed bright blue clarity.
State water officials flagged the project for violations.
State parks officials terminated the contract, and awarded it to another company, Herback General Engineering, from Minden, Nevada, the next year. That contractor encountered weather delays and solid granite in some places where new pipes had to be installed underground.
The job extended into a third summer, and the price grew to $5.5 million. The costs were covered by state parks funds and the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, a federal law first passed in 2000 by former Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to fund environmental restoration projects around Lake Tahoe.
The project involves nearly three miles of new water mains, two new 25,000-gallon holding tanks, and 25 new fire hydrants.
Over the past three summers, the restrooms, campground, visitor center, main gates and other facilities have been closed. People could still access the park by hiking along the Rubicon Trail from Emerald Bay State Park to the south, or reach a beach if they sailed there in a boat.
Now that the work is finished, Adams said Wednesday, visitors can park near the visitor center and hike through the park. The facilities will reopen May 21 after the winter season, even as the park’s 100th anniversary approaches in 2029.
“D.L. Bliss is its own destination,” Adams said. “You can go to the beach. You can go hiking. It’s so wonderful. It’s an iconic park.”
Myers agreed, calling it one of the most classic and renowned parks around the lake.
“It’s serene and peaceful,” he said. “I have had people asking me all the time ‘Do you know when D.L. Bliss is reopening?’ We are very excited. It is one of the gems of Lake Tahoe and California state parks.”