State Scenic Highway 88 88
State Scenic Highway 88 is a National Forest Scenic Byway in California. Within California it covers roughly 55 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along State Scenic Highway 88 with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
State Scenic Highway 88, the Carson Pass Highway, follows a 10,000-year-old trade route across the Sierra Nevada from Stockton to Nevada. Long before the automobile, Washo people on the range's eastern side traded with Miwok communities to the west along this same corridor, and in 1848 a party of returning Mormon Battalion veterans blazed a wagon route over Carson Pass to avoid the Truckee River route's many river crossings. A toll road opened east of Antelope Springs in the 1850s, and the treacherous original grade was rerouted through the blasted Carson Spur in 1863, widened to its modern form by 1960. The Sierra crossing became the most recent trans-Sierra highway to stay open year-round, starting in 1971. Today the portion crossing the mountains is both part of California's State Scenic Highway System and a designated National Forest Scenic Byway, a 58-mile alpine drive through granite peaks and meadows between the San Joaquin Valley and the Nevada state line.
- Stockton to Nevada state line
- 58-mile mountain crossing
- 10,000-year-old Washo/Miwok trade route
- 1848 Mormon Battalion wagon route
- National Forest Scenic Byway
- Carson Spur rerouted 1863
Plan a drive on State Scenic Highway 88 →
What is a National Forest Scenic Byway?
National Forest Scenic Byways are routes designated by the U.S. Forest Service that thread through the mountains, canyons and old growth of America's national forests and grasslands.
Where to Stay along State Scenic Highway 88
12 campgrounds and RV parks sit within about 5 miles of State Scenic Highway 88.
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