Who Grooms the Dollar Creek Trail, and Who's Paying for It This Winter?

When someone notices the Dollar Creek Trail has been freshly groomed, a group text pings roughly 40 phone numbers. In a Sierra Sun profile of the trail's grooming, the man driving that snowcat said his wife laughs every time it goes off: "The text message just went off. You groomed."

The thread exists because grooming here is not on any public schedule. The wide, groomed corridor that starts near the Dollar Hill parking lot is not a county service or a ski area product. A neighbor runs it, and each winter the money has to be found again. The first groom usually comes in November or December, so the funding question comes back every year right about now.

A leftover snowcat that grew into a trail system

Justin Sheaff started grooming a trail in his own neighborhood about 15 years ago. The Sierra Sun reported that he had a snowcat left over from a construction project his company had finished. He decided to use it instead of selling it, and at first he groomed around the neighborhood when he had time or when the snow called for it.

Today the grooming covers the full Dollar Creek Trail, which runs more than four miles and is a paved shared-use path in summer. It doesn't stop at the trail's end. A connector runs to the Tahoe Cross-Country center, and the grooming also loops around the water tanks and ties into the surrounding neighborhoods, the parking lot and nearby trails. When conditions allow, his team grooms close to every day.

The trail is also wider than most groomed winter trails. It's laid down two snowcats wide on purpose:

"The idea is that by making it wide, you alleviate a lot of the conflict, if you will, on the trail, between user-ship."

That's how Sheaff explained it to the Sierra Sun. The extra width leaves room for dog walkers, skiers, striders, fat-tire bikers, snowshoers and snowmobiles all on the same day. The same article says the grooming began partly to end conflicts that started when people walked in snowmobile tracks.

The Sierra Sun says the trail sits in Placer County, and both the trail and the parking are free. The North Tahoe Community Alliance's project page says access is through "a newly constructed parking lot located on Dollar Hill."

What one winter cost, and what it bought

For years Sheaff paid the costs himself through his company. The Sierra Sun listed what those costs are: fuel, maintenance, storage, repairs and wages. When the county began requiring insurance, that added a significant expense of its own. "At a certain point," he told the paper, "it got out of control, which is where we went looking for funding the last couple years."

The North Tahoe Community Alliance stepped in with $125,000 from the Tourism Business Improvement District. That money comes from assessments on purchases at North Tahoe activity providers, restaurants and retailers. According to the Sierra Sun, the grant covered about half of the operation's annual costs.

The NTCA's project page reports what that half paid for during the 2024–25 winter, which it calls short:

Those surveys pointed in one direction. The NTCA summarized them as asking to keep the grooming going, add trash cans and restrooms, and expand the program to more multi-use trails. The same update lists fallen-tree removal after an unusually windy winter and new winter trail signs.

The money also had to meet a condition. TBID funds must go to programs that directly benefit the businesses paying the assessment. The Sierra Sun spoke with Amy Wood at Tahoe Dave's in Tahoe City, who said the shop often sends its cross-country ski and snowshoe rental customers to the trail. Sheaff added that Airbnbs and hotels had started sending guests there too.

The grant list that came after

In January 2026, the Sierra Sun reported on the NTCA's 2025–26 annual grant cycle. Thirty-nine projects applied. The NTCA board approved up to $688,935 in TBID funds for five of them: Boys & Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe youth programs, the Truckee-Tahoe Workforce Housing Agency's housing resource hub, a Tahoe Wood strategy from the Tahoe Prosperity Center, Clean Up The Lake's 72-mile deep clean, and real-time shoreline water-quality data from UC Davis TERC. Dollar Creek Trail grooming wasn't one of the five.

The trail money that cycle went to bigger projects. The NTCA recommended $1,500,000 in TOT funds for Segment 1 of TCPUD's Dianne Feinstein West Shore Tahoe Trail Reconstruction, and $43,975 for the High Fives Foundation's North Tahoe Trail Expansion Project.

The NTCA's Annual Grant Cycle page now says the program "will resume in 2027." The same page says TBID investments in other projects continue through 2026–27, but the annual grant round that once paid for half a winter of grooming won't open again until 2027.

Sheaff saw this coming. In 2025 he told the Sierra Sun that the trail "has to get funded if we're going to continue doing it." He described the other option as cutting back on how often the trail is groomed, which is hard to do when so many people depend on it. Some people walk the groomed trail because icy roads leave them no other safe place to exercise in winter. The same article says neighbors started a GoFundMe years ago, and that it has struggled to raise enough. Other volunteers built the survey QR code that helped win the TBID grant, and someone started an Instagram page for the trail.

Free trail, $499 pass

The next ski area over shows what Dollar Creek would cost if a ski area ran it. Tahoe XC, which the Dollar Creek connector reaches, lists 2026–27 season passes at $499 for adults, $139 for a dog pass and $225 for a Glide Pass. Its 10-ticket pack costs $440. Children 12 and under and adults 76 and older ski free with a complimentary ticket.

Tahoe XC is also changing where it starts. The ski area is moving its trailhead to 3001 Polaris Road, closer to North Tahoe Middle and High School and in the same neighborhood as the current lodge. Its lodge project's June 1, 2026 update said Stuart Gensburg and Sons had returned to the site in mid-May. The summer and fall work list included paving the new parking lot and driveway, finishing water and electrical service, and installing six Level 2 EV charging stations along with the project's first green-energy infrastructure. Last winter, trail access stayed at 925 Country Club Blvd. TCPUD owns the existing building and will decide what happens to it after Tahoe XC moves out.

With a $499 adult pass next door, the free Dollar Hill lot fills a different need. Sheaff gave the Sierra Sun his own version: "You could have a wallet full of cash or a wallet full of nothing and still have the exact same great time." He also pointed to the trail's location, away from the Palisades and Northstar traffic. The operations team also builds a sledding hill for kids. In visitor surveys, some families with ski resort passes called the trail the highlight of their stay.

Winter rules on the trails around Dollar Point

Until the first groom, the trails around Dollar Point run on their usual seasonal schedules, and several switch over in November:

1. Dollar Creek Trail. The first groom typically comes in November or December, and the last in early May. Grooming can run later if snow lingers.
2. Burton Creek State Park. The park has six miles of trails for hiking, biking, skiing and snowshoeing. California State Parks limits dogs to fire roads, and from November 1 to May 1 dogs are kept off designated ski trails when snow is present. Dog walkers who switch between Burton Creek and Dollar Creek need to know which rule applies where.
3. Lake Forest Boat Ramp. TCPUD's boat ramp page lists a November 1 through November 30 closure for dredging, with work expected to finish by November 30 if weather and conditions allow. While the ramp is closed, the Tahoe Resource Conservation District's winter ramp operations move to Obexers Marina.
4. TCPUD's paved trail network. The district clears snow from 16 miles of its 23-mile multi-use network once snowfall reaches three inches. Which miles get cleared first depends on priority, staff capacity and conditions.

TCPUD clears its paved miles as a district service. Dollar Creek's groomed miles depend on a snowcat from Sheaff's company and whatever money the season brings in. The NTCA's 2024–25 update counted 66 days of grooming in a short winter, and that's the record this winter will be measured against.

I grew up on trails like this one. I can tell you which Dollar Point streets sit closest to the Dollar Hill lot and the Polaris Road trailhead, and how your winter changes depending on which one you're nearer. If you'd like a local view on that, or on anything else about life on this side of Tahoe City, reach out to High Mountain Homes. Let's Connect.