Meet Tahoe Donner Trails Manager, Leslie Loveland

If you frequent the trail system, there’s a good chance you’ve come across Leslie Loveland, Tahoe Donner’s resident trail expert and manager. Hailing from South Dakota, Loveland’s educational background and career experience lend themselves to the extensive and intentional maintenance of Tahoe Donner’s most cherished natural resources. Having grown up in the outdoors, Loveland grew up hunting, fishing and hiking with her family. Graduating with a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries, she has since dedicated her career to preserving and protecting the environment, whether for sustainable recreational use and enjoyment or conservation practices.

Loveland spent the first 15 years of her career as a wildlife technician. She volunteered at the Gavin’s Point National Fish Hatchery during Pallid Sturgeon spawning season. She then landed her dream job working for the National Park Service on the Missouri and Niobrara Rivers, studying threatened and endangered shorebirds from a kayak. She next became a tour guide on a Glacier in Seward, Alaska, and then later discovered a love for researching raptors for various nonprofit wildlife organizations – most recently the U.S. Forest Service. Loveland monitored and researched bird habitat and movement, specializing in forest raptors: spotted owls, goshawks, peregrine falcons and bald eagles. Additionally, she surveyed these species for forest thinning and trail projects, and conducted post-fire restoration work on many of California’s largest wildfires.

Loveland now spends her time in Tahoe Donner restoring meadows and damaged sections of the trail system. She helps to realign trails for improved connectivity, install wayfinding signage and revitalize local habitat and ecosystems, all while continuing to monitor the area’s wildlife. She enjoys collaborating with other departments and receiving support and guidance from her fellow Land Management team members. While trails management is her job, she confesses it doesn’t feel like work, “My real passion is getting outside and playing in the dirt!”

Among her repertoire, Loveland has a commercial driver’s license, which allows her to drive semi-trucks, move heavy machinery and drive the Tahoe Donner buses. She is an experienced operator of excavators, skid steers, chainsaws and other machinery. And, she spent five years working on a trail crew for a local nonprofit, where she fell in love with seeing trail projects through from start to finish. As for her other interests, Loveland enjoys backpacking, trail running, mountain biking, skiing, boating, white-water rafting and kayaking with her husband and two miniature pinschers.