·       The eight candidates vying for the four seats on the Tahoe Paradise Resort Improvement District board are having a forum Oct. 1 from 6-8pm at the park. The election is in November.

·       The North Tahoe Ski and Sports Swap celebrates its 52nd year on Oct. 24 from 9am-3pm at North Tahoe High School.

·       Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is looking for volunteers to be part of the active transportation plan fall photo shoot the morning of Oct. 8. For more info, email Morgan Beryl at mberyl@trpa.org.

·      Nevada Health Link’s open enrollment health fair is Nov. 1 from 10am-6pm at the Boys & Girls Club, 2680 E. 9th St., Reno. For more info, go online.

·      Barton Hospital Auxiliary has established the Dan Kerr Memorial Scholarship, which will award its first money in 2016.

Starting Oct. 1, Lake Tahoe boat inspections will move to select launch ramps and winter hours will begin.

Tahoe Resource Conservation District inspectors will be stationed at Cave Rock and Lake Forest boat launches from 6am-4pm seven days a week, weather permitting. All boats without an intact Tahoe inspection seal are required to get an inspection during daylight hours. Decontaminations are available by appointment only. Decontamination fees will apply.

Boats with intact inspection seals are permitted to launch at all open launch facilities; however, inspections are only available at Cave Rock and Lake Forest.

During the 2015 boating season, Tahoe RCD watercraft inspectors performed more than 5,500 inspections. More than 14,000 vessels launched at Lake Tahoe, including newly inspected vessels and those with intact Tahoe-issued inspection seals.

This year 35 of the inspected watercraft were harboring aquatic invasive plants, mussels or snails. TRCD decontaminated approximately 3,200 watercraft with hot water, preventing invasive species from entering Tahoe’s waters.

By Jason Blevins, Denver Post

Booming season pass sales and an expanding foot print in the West’s top ski destination states of Colorado, Utah and California are helping Vail Resorts thrive despite fickle snowfall.

North America’s largest resort operator on Monday reported $1.4 billion in revenue for its fiscal 2015 year, up 11.6 percent from the previous year. This is the sixth time in the last decade that Vail’s revenues have topped $1 billion.

Almost all of the 2015 revenue came from on-mountain and lodging operations, despite the worst winter on record in California, where Vail operates three resorts. Vail’s earnings from resort revenue — defined as lodging and mountain earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA — climbed 36 percent to $365.8 million.

Read the whole story

Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is hosting meetings this week at both ends of the lake to gather input from residents about unmet transit needs.

The first gathering is Sept. 30 at 1pm at the South Lake Tahoe Senior Center, 3050 Lake Tahoe Blvd.

The Tahoe City meeting is Oct. 1 at 1pm the transit center on West Lake Boulevard.

For those who cannot attend, comments may be emailed to jweber@trpa.org.

By Powder

Erik Roner, father, husband and beloved member of the action-sports community, has tragically died after a parachuting accident this morning in Squaw Valley.

Erik Roner died Sept. 28 parachuting at Squaw Valley. Photo/ Nitro Circus

As a member of a small four-man team of parachuters jumping as part of the opening ceremonies of the fourth annual Squaw Valley Institute Celebrity Golf Tournament, Roner descended into the drop zone but was off target and hit a large tree.

According to witnesses, Roner was suspended by his chute 25-30 feet off the ground for at least 40 minutes until emergency crews could reach him. He was then transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. Cause of death is still unknown.

Read the whole story

A Homewood man was cited Sept. 25 for allegedly furnishing alcoholic beverages to a minor.

South Lake Tahoe police officers on Friday conducted a decoy shoulder tap operation in the Emerald Bay Road-Lake Tahoe Boulevard area to see if businesses were selling booze to under age people.

Under the program a minor under the direct supervision of a peace officer will stand outside a liquor or convenience store and ask patrons to buy them alcohol.  The minor indicates in some way he or she is underage and cannot purchase the alcohol.

If found guilty, Mark Finlaysn, 38, faces a minimum $1,000 fine and 24 hours of community service. Officials have not provide the business where he works.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Harriet Baskas, CNBC

Gerda Stoof was delighted last week to be looking up at the 60-foot-tall stone faces of Mount Rushmore National Memorial near Keystone, South Dakota. She and her husband made a pit stop on their drive home from visiting new twin grandchildren in Ontario.

“I’ve heard about this all my life and have always wanted to see it,” said Stoof, a native of Alberta, Canada. They were unaware that if they’d shown up a week later, the gates to the site of the iconic granite sculpture may have been locked.

That’s because if Oct. 1 rolls around without the nation’s lawmakers settling a budget for the new fiscal year, there may be a partial government shutdown that would affect the nation’s more than 400 national parks and historic sites—including federal agencies that support tourism.

If there is a partial shutdown, it would cost the U.S. travel sector at least $185 million per day in lost economic output, U.S. Travel Association economists estimate. That could also lead to the loss of 530,000 travel-related jobs due to temporary layoffs, reduced wages and fewer hours worked.

Read the whole story

By Ben Egel, Sacramento Bee

The Truckee Bike Park was born out of grief.

Co-founder Cortney Knudson was deep in mourning after her father passed away, and to cheer her up, her boyfriend, Brooks McMullin, suggested a vacation away from their North Lake Tahoe routine. They found themselves in Hailey, Idaho in 2011, visiting friends and riding dirt bikes over pump tracks – circuits full of berms to roll up and down.

It was a welcome reprieve, Knudson said, and an organized type of rural biking that didn’t exist in Lake Tahoe.

On the nine-hour drive home, Knudson and McMullin kept having the same thought: “Why couldn’t we do this back home?” About a week later, they founded a nonprofit called Biking for a Better World, designed to raise funds and awareness for cycling in Northern California.

Read the whole story

The Kids Super Hero Pumpkin Fun Run, part of the Lake Tahoe Marathon, is Oct. 10 on the South Shore.

Free fun runs start at 10:30am for ages 1-10. The distance is approximately 50 yards. The Super Hero 5K is for older kids. It starts at 11:15am.

Events will be at the Beach House Grill, 4081 Lakeshore Blvd. below the casinos at Lakeside Beach.

Register online.

By Associated Press

UNR plans to accept more than 2,000 boxes of documents chronicling Sen. Harry Reid’s decades-long career in Washington.

The university already has about 30 boxes of documents from Reid’s time as a congressman. But it’s expecting hundreds more, along with three terabytes of digital information, when Reid’s Senate career ends in 2017.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal first reported the donation.

Library officials at the school say the collection will help illuminate major political decisions over the years, including the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the passage of Obamacare.

Most of the collection is now in government storage lockers in Maryland. Officials say a portion of the documents will remain confidential until at least 15 years after Reid retires.