Sandor Lengyel builds things meant to outlast him.

High on trails meandering along the West Shore of Tahoe, this means benches — massive, hand-built seats made from dead and downed trees, milled and hand-built on-site. Seven of them now sit along the trail — with one more on its way — offering hikers and bikers a place to stop, take in Lake Tahoe, and admire the view.

Lengyel, a Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association (TAMBA) trail crew leader, built his first trailside bench after the organization rerouted and dramatically improved the iconic Stanford Rock trail. He wasn’t expecting much from a piece of furniture.

But “[the bench] really became a focal point up there,” he said. “It had a larger impact than I anticipated.”

That bench sparked an idea.

As TAMBA began planning the Meeks Ridge Trail — a route that will eventually connect to Lost Lake and, via the General Creek Trail, Sugar Pine Point State Park — it approached the Tahoe Fund about financing. What emerged was a distinctly Tahoe kind of equation: People who love the place and have the means to give back can pay $10,000 or more for a commemorative bench. TAMBA gets money to build the trail. And everyone who comes along afterward gets a wonderful trail to explore and places to rest.

It was a win-win-win. Then Lengyel started building the benches.

“Sandor blew us away. We didn’t realize they would be as magnificent as they would be,” said Tahoe Fund CEO Amy Berry.

Magnificent may be understating it.

Building a bench

Lengyel began working on trails in Marin County after graduating from college. 

“I discovered it is legacy work,” he said. “The work we are doing will positively impact people’s lives long after I’m gone.” 

When he bought a house in Tahoma in 2005, he connected with TAMBA and started becoming involved in their trail projects, especially the Stanford Rock trail, before eventually working on the Meeks Ridge Trail. 

“Sandor blew us away. We didn’t realize [the benches] would be as magnificent as they would be.”

~ Tahoe Fund CEO Amy Berry

“With so many drought-stressed trees dead and dying, we were able to use dead trees to build the benches. Half of them we built with storm blow-downs,” Lengyel said. “We would mill as close as possible to the site, but we had to haul some of the slabs a thousand feet to the site.”

Lengyel would lug out an Alaskan mill, which is a large rail attached to a chainsaw. It is basically a miniature sawmill, and makes a clean, flat cut in the wood. “It’s slow, noisy, and dusty, and I wear double ear protection and a respirator,” he said.

Each bench requires six slabs. After cutting the slabs, Lengyel then strips the bark with an ax, wedge, and a draw knife, tools that have been used for taking on these tasks for hundreds of years. Once he has the slabs ready, other TAMBA folks help him to haul the pieces to the bench site. 

Seven benches have been built so far, with the last to be constructed next year when the Meeks Ridge Trail is completed at the highest overlook. This trail offers beautiful views of Lake Tahoe, the Meeks Bay meadow, and the edge of Desolation Wilderness.

In addition to being a great fundraising tool, “The benches are a huge hit with the locals,” said TAMBA Executive Director Drew Bray.

Finishing the trail

Bray is hoping they can finish the connection to Lost Lake by next year. But the job has been harder than anticipated. The further up the ridge they travel, the more challenging and rockier is the terrain. The money TAMBA received from Tahoe Fund and other donors, however, has enabled them to have professional trail building crews out working for 16 weeks this summer. “It’s making an incredible difference, but progress is slow,” Bray said. 

The need for trail volunteers and money is great in our area. 

“The Forest Service is chronically underfunded,” Lengyel said. “The Tahoe Basin is a global recreation destination, but the Forest Service has only a two-person trail crew. They are unable to maintain their system of trails. So, the Tahoe Rim Trail Association and TAMBA have closed the funding gap and stepped in to maintain this amazing recreational resource.” 

In early August, the money needed to finish the trail’s construction arrived when South Lake Tahoe philanthropists Kyle and Jessica Aster gave TAMBA $250,000 to fully fund this upcoming season’s construction of the Meeks Ridge Trail. Avid mountain bikers, the couple made the donation not only to complete this trail, but for it to be the first phase in a new trail building program called the Basin Wide Trails Analysis Project, which seeks to add an additional 45 miles of trails in the Tahoe Basin. 

“Time and time again the community steps up when the need is there,” Berry said. “TAMBA does a great job building trails, and a lot of people who love Tahoe have the capacity to really leave their legacy.”