Plumas National Forest spans 1,146,000 acres at the northern end of California’s Sierra Nevada, centered on the Feather River watershed and extending across Plumas and nearby counties. Established as the Plumas Forest Reserve in 1905, it became a National Forest in 1907, later expanding with part of Diamond Mountain National Forest and gaining the Bucks Lake Wilderness in 1984. Managed today by the U.S. Forest Service, it remains significant for its vast public lands, Feather River headwaters, and surviving old-growth habitat. Despite a long logging history that began during the gold rush and left almost no virgin timberland, substantial mixed-conifer old growth still endures.