This Tahoe Truckee hike is a meditation on Jeffrey pine and sagebrush FacebookTwitterEmail 1of3 2of3 3of3 Elizabethtown Meadows is a trail hidden in plain sight. I’ve driven past the trailhead countless times, but I didn’t know the trail existed until a former colleague, who now works at the Tahoe Donner Land Trust, told me about it. The trail begins near Northstar and heads north, traversing a gentle slopeside of Jeffrey pines and large alpine meadows for a couple of miles until it connects to a larger trail system at Waddle Ranch in Martis Valley. While Tahoe’s higher elevations are still buried in snow, Elizabethtown Meadows and Waddle Ranch are already dry, open and ready for hiking. If there's one thing to know about hiking in Tahoe in the spring, it's to start low and follow the snowmelt to the higher elevations.