'We saw lives change': Free Sierra Nevada cowboy camp is a detox from screens |
With the ever-present arrival of tech billionaires and their otherworldly transactions to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, it’s sometimes hard to believe that, for much of the 20th century, the area was known for its cowboys.
Cowboy culture here includes once-famous spots like the Ponderosa attraction in Incline Village, a small Western theme park based on the long-running TV Western “Bonanza.” The 2004 sale of the Ponderosa property to Incline-based billionaire David Duffield reflected a shift in the region from rural outpost to tech billionaire hideaway. The theme park is long shuttered, and the acquisitions and activities of the mega-wealthy continue to dominate the discourse for Lake Tahoe’s East Shore, yet real-deal cowboys persist.
You just have to know where to look.
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Participants learn from real ranchers how to do ranch work at the Nevada Cowboy Experience. The free, nonprofit camp near Lake Tahoe is currently taking applications for its one-week session in Nevada’s Carson Valley in late July 2026.
One of them is Nick Nalder. He co-owns Nalder Cattle Company, a ranching outfit in Nevada’s Carson Valley just outside the Tahoe Basin, and participates in professional team roping competitions.
“Growing up, I was always loosely involved in the agriculture scene in the Carson Valley,” Nalder told SFGATE. “All I wanted to do on the weekends was go brand calves, be a cattle herder for family friends. Any opportunity I got to do it, that’s all I wanted to do.”
Now, Nalder is passing down those cowboy skills to a new generation. He’s part of an immersive camp that would showcase the region’s ranching and cowboy heritage, along with the talents of those who still make their living working outdoors.
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Campers and volunteers participate at the Nevada Cowboy Experience. The free, nonprofit camp near Lake Tahoe is currently taking applications for its one-week session in Nevada’s Carson Valley in late July 2026.
The idea hatched about two years ago, when Tahoe real estate agent Mike Dunn, who lives and raises his family in the Carson Valley, pitched a cowboy camp to a group of friends and neighbors, including Nalder.
At first, the notion was to have a camp for adults where they’d get a chance to connect a little better with nature and their surroundings and experience the work that folks do to keep the region’s agricultural industries going.
Organizer Dunn referenced the “Yellowstone effect”: a sudden explosion of rodeo and cowboy culture that has created a renaissance, of sorts, in interest in places like the Carson Valley and the way of life that has persisted there for more than a century and a half.
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Campers participate at the Nevada Cowboy Experience, with no devices in sight. The free, nonprofit camp near Lake Tahoe is currently taking applications for its one-week session in Nevada’s Carson Valley in late July 2026.
Participants learn from real ranchers how to do ranch work at the Nevada Cowboy........