Pollock Pines, CA

Pollock Pines holds the high ground along Highway 50 in El Dorado County, beyond Placerville and well on the way up toward Lake Tahoe. Timber is what the town grew from, and the name belongs to a sawmill operator who ended up subdividing land. Houseberry divides it into two neighborhoods. Pollock Pines is the highway corridor and the wooded streets behind it, where the grocery store, library and most restaurants cluster. Gold Ridge Forest is quieter hill country south of the strip, organized around the lake country at Sly Park. Houses are mostly single-family places set among trees, and sidewalks are scarce. Commercial buildings line one short run of the highway and everything else is forest. Getting around means driving. Sacramento is a long haul west and Tahoe a similar trek east, so the town works as a base for people who commute down the hill or head up toward the snow on weekends. Outdoors is the reason many people choose this town. Jenkinson Lake has a shoreline trail of about nine miles, Forebay Reservoir and a recreation park fill in the north side, and each fall the orchards of Apple Hill in nearby Camino pull weekend crowds a short way west. The table carries some local history too. Sportsman's Hall, a stagecoach stop from the gold rush years, now dishes up prime rib sandwiches. Southfork 1848 bakeshop and eatery is the biscuits and gravy stop, and Burger Barn runs a hot grill with real beer-battered fries. Safeway, the county library and the other basics line Highway 50, so a weekly routine is simple. Anything bigger means a drive, with Placerville the nearest town of large stores. Winter is the honest cost, because snow can shrink ordinary errands to a single road, and the highway is the lifeline in both directions. Pollock Pines suits people who want pines outside every window and a lake a few minutes away.