The Tahoe Rim Trail Association’s 36th annual Celebration & Fundraiser is Oct. 3.

This is an opportunity to celebrate another successful year. The state of the trail address will be given.

The party will be at the North Tahoe Event Center in Kings Beach. It will include food and a silent auction. Proceeds from benefit TRTA programs on and off the trail, from trail building and maintenance to youth excursions.

The event is from 5-8pm. Tickets are $55. Purchase them online.

Squaw Valley-Alpine Meadows has been on a quest to increase the number of Chinese nationals who visit the ski resorts.

A partnership with Toread, the leading Chinese outdoor retailer, travel service, and operator of the Snowone ski competition tour, one of the most well-known winter sports events in China, is designed to help with that quest.

The Tahoe area resorts already has a strategic alliance in place with China’s Genting Resort Secret Garden. To date, the partnership has included delegation visits at both Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows and Genting Resort Secret Garden for trail naming ceremonies, joint training sessions and staff cross-training opportunities.

The China Ski Association has reported that the number of skiers in China has increased from 200,000 in 2000 to 12.5 million in 2015.

The partnership with Toread has the potential to expose a broad base of Chinese skiers and snowboarders to Tahoe.

Toread and Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows also intend to work together on events, including coordination of a friendly competition between the U.S. and Chinese national freestyle teams.

By Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee

Californians can’t shake their love affair with cars – and pickups and SUVs. That’s hurting the greenest state in the union’s much-publicized crusade against climate change.

While California is making headway in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the rate of progress is slowing. Emissions fell by a scant 0.3 percent in 2015, the last year for which figures are available. It was one of the smallest year-to-year declines recorded since California enacted laws aimed at defeating global warming more than a decade ago, and calls into question the state’s ability to meet long-term goals for curtailing carbon.

The chief culprit: California’s cars and trucks.

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Smoke rises Aug. 28 from the fire in Round Hill at the NV Energy substation. Photo/Christopher Kelly

Updated 9:35am:

A large swath of the South Shore was dark this morning because of a fire at an NV Energy substation in Round Hill.

That station feeds Liberty Utilities, which is why people in California were affected as well.

The power went off just after 8am on Aug. 28.

At the height, 15,000 Liberty Utilities customers affected; this includes the Markleeville area and the South Shore of Lake Tahoe. All power to those people were restored at about 9:30am.

NV Energy is reporting 8,795 customers in Douglas County without power.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Tahoe Vista is going to host what is being dubbed as the world’s longest inland standup paddleboard race.

This will be the second year for the Tahoe Vista Paddlefest.

It will be Sept. 8-10. Women on Water is that Friday, The Butterfly Effect on Saturday and the 22-mile long Fall Classic race on Sunday.

There are events for the serious paddler and the recreationalist.

For more info, go online.

Beautifuf

Beautiful is a fun, playful 8-month-old kitten. She will do well in just about any home.

Beautiful is spayed, microchipped, tested for FIV, and vaccinated. She is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes.

Go to the Tahoe animal shelter’s Facebook page to see photos and descriptions of all pets at the shelter.

Call 530.573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.

For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online or call the animal shelter. Vouchers are available there also: bring $25 and a copy of a photo ID and a local utility bill.

— Karen Kuentz

By Kathryn Reed

Gears. Oh, my, I will never take them for granted on my bikes ever again.

Sunday’s tiny excursion through South Lake Tahoe on a LimeBike proved a few things: a) I might be in worse shape than I want to admit, b) the town is not as flat as I think it is, and c) a heavy bike cruiser is not meant for a mountain environment.

I love the concept of LimeBike; love the whole shared economy. I don’t mind the color. It’s fun. I’m totally good with not having docking stations. It adds to the flexibility of the whole rental.

Does the system need some tweaking? Of course. Every business needs to make adjustments, especially when first starting out.

Two us started from different locations with the goal of meeting up and riding to lunch on Aug. 27. Sue had looked the night before to see where a LimeBike was located (it’s all done through an app) and there was one on 13th Street. By the next morning it was gone. She walked about 15 minutes to Burger Lounge for the next one. It wasn’t locked. She rode for free the whole day.

“I began to have guilty feelings, thinking someone would come out of the restaurant without their transportation. This is my ethical dilemma with the LimeBike program. It’s like stealing someone’s horse in the Old West,” she said.

In reality, there is a big difference. She would have been shot dead for stealing a horse. LimeBike’s, well, they are meant to be shared. No stealing possible. No reserving either.

LikeBikes are cheap transport, but it’s a bit of a workout. Photo/LTN

People are known to not lock them when they stop. In part this is to thwart someone from taking it. For those on a free ride it means having the bike that much longer without paying.

I thought I was going to have it easy getting my bike. There has been a LikeBike on my street for at least week. When I went to unlock it it said it was out of service for maintenance. A neighbor came out. He said he called LimeBike to come move it. He said they had no record of it being on this street near the Y.

There is a GPS system in the bikes, which is how the owners know where they are and how people can find them via the app.

This meant I had to start walking. The closest was at Grocery Outlet. But that one didn’t unlock either. I tried moving it and a recording said something about the police would be called if it’s moved without unlocking it. I moved on without the bike.

Next one was on Bertha. It was at a residence. The guy poked his head over the fence. He was fine that I wanted to take the LimeBike away.

He’s hoping the next incarnation of the bikes have gears and a better steering mechanism. Sue echoed those sentiments.

“For one thing, I wished I had my Allen wrench to fix the crooked handlebars,” she said.

I was whining about the little things. I had actually looked forward to having the front basket for my phone, camera and notebook. Didn’t work. All could slide out.

We both thought the seats were uncomfortable after a couple miles. Riding on our crappy roads on a LimeBike was worse than being on my 20-year-old mountain bike. There’s no give on these LimeBike’s. The cracks on the roads are jarring; not sure if I should send my massage bill to the city or LimeBike. (Just kidding of course.)

Sue had issues with the handlebars to the extent she felt awkward, saying her elbows were bent the whole time. I didn’t have the same issue. I liked that the grips were flat. Way more comfortable than my bikes.

At the end of the ride LimeBike shows you a map of your route, how many miles you went, the carbon you saved, and calories burned. I’m too embarrassed to share the mileage. Suffice it to say we sweated more than we would have on our own bikes.

“Having no gears could be problematic as I felt the hard pedaling associated with having one gear was the equivalent to an hour’s workout at the gym,” Sue said.

Mostly we were on city streets or bike paths.

“I also appreciated having tires that could ride over dirt since I took the Washington-Dunlap street cutoff,” Sue said.

The tires are tubeless, so no need to worry about getting a flat. But it does make the bike heavier.

LimeBikes are here through September on a trial basis. I’m not sure they are ideal for tourists unaccustomed to this elevation. Gears are a beautiful thing and these bikes don’t have any. There is no way I would recommend them to guests. I’d send them to a local bike shop with a better bike – the cost would be worth it. Locals who have a bike probably aren’t going to get on one unless they are writing about the experience. What I can see is locals who don’t have a bike and need to get from point A to point B faster than walking would use them. It would be great for errands, going to class, that sort of thing.

The concept is great, it’s the bike itself that leaves a lot to be desired.

By Joe Mathews

Take me out to the ball game? Sure, as long as you’re taking me to San Jose or Lake Elsinore.

Those cities don’t have major league teams—that’s the point. In California, Major League Baseball is miserable. Big league games run long and cost hundreds of dollars for families to attend. The stadiums in Oakland and Anaheim are dumps, as are the teams in San Francisco and San Diego. In Los Angeles, the championship-contending Dodgers greedily cling to a contract that prevents most Angelenos from watching them on TV.

Joe Mathews

But there is an antidote to big-league baloney: the California League—our very own minor league. The games are fast-paced (the lack of TV commercial breaks helps), the ballpark entertainment is fun, and tickets are affordable.

Of course, the California League is Californians, and mirrors the challenges of our high-cost, high-poverty state. The league has teams in Stockton and San Bernardino, cities known for surviving municipal bankruptcies. The California League is strongest in two of the state’s most economically challenged regions—the San Joaquin Valley and the Inland Empire each have three teams. The other two squads are in Lancaster, in L.A. County’s high-crime High Desert, and San Jose, a city with wealthy residents but a starving government because it has too few sales-tax producing businesses.

Like California itself, the league has had trouble with out-of-state migration. After the 2016 season, two of the 10 teams were shut down and shifted to the Carolinas. One, the High Desert Mavericks, left after the city of Adelanto canceled the Mavericks’ lease in the publicly owned ballpark. The other, the Bakersfield Blaze, departed after seven years of unsuccessful attempts to replace aging Sam Lynn Ballpark.

Charlie Blaney, the California League’s president, told me that the state’s elimination of local redevelopment agencies earlier this decade has thwarted attempts to build new ballparks. It’s hard to construct housing in California—for people or minor league teams.

At the same time, the history of the league (it dates to 1941, nearly 20 years before major league teams arrived) help make it great. In Visalia, you can watch the Rawhide play in Recreation Park, built in 1946, a place so intimate you can hear the players chatting with each other. In Riverside County, you can join the passionate crowds at The Diamond, home of the Lake Elsinore Storm, a Padres affiliate that draws 200,000 fans a year in a city of 55,000.

But there is no place better to watch a ball game in this state than in the league’s oldest park, San Jose Municipal Stadium, which opened in 1942.

The San Jose Giants, an affiliate of San Francisco’s Giants, spruce up the old place with paint—baseball cartoons, baseball quotes, and baseball banners cover every flat surface. The lovely old grandstand pleases nostalgists. The open picnic space down the left field line appeals to party-throwing millennials. Behind the plate, Giants staffers keep their office doors open so fans can walk in. The players are close enough for fans to get to know personally; in the right field corner, young women spent much of the game I saw flirting with pitchers in the Giants bullpen.

The stadium shows signs of age—worn spots on the field, and a lack of bathrooms that requires the presence of port-a-potties. But I paid $13 for a ticket and sat just to the right of home plate, 10 rows up. (You can’t sit in Dodger Stadium for less than $21 even at the cheapest game.)

The game was played well and fast—just over two hours. Every minute between innings was filled with entertaining promotion. Fans played blackjack against the mascot Gigante (to promote a local casino). In a nod to a plumbing company sponsor, a toilet was carried onto the field and a child was invited to throw balls into it. Late in the game, two fans faced off in an air guitar contest.

The crowd was diverse in ethnicity, race and age, and large for a weeknight. Fans really came alive when the night’s designated “Beer Batter,” Arturo Nieto of the visiting Modesto Nuts, came to the plate. The fans taunted Nieto until he struck out swinging, which triggered the announcement that beer would be half-priced for the following 15 minutes.

“Don’t run too fast and don’t drink too fast,” said the public address announcer, as one-third of the crowd scurried to the beer stands.

I hadn’t planned to stay the whole game—I had to get to Salinas for an interview the next morning. But the hot dog and the Fritos nachos tasted great, and I was having too much fun to leave early. And I can’t wait to go back.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.

By Henry Brean, Las Vegas Review-Journal
 
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s national monument report went to the White House on Thursday, but the Trump administration has yet to disclose any recommendations from the unprecedented four-month review.

The lack of information drew criticism from monument advocates, including Democratic members of Nevada’s congressional delegation. Conservation groups have formally requested the release of Zinke’s report under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Interior Department responded to the growing calls for transparency on Friday by releasing a list of news stories and statements from right-leaning groups praising Zinke and the monument review.

Read the whole story

By Thomas Moore, Las Vegas Sun

When it comes to recreational marijuana here, the message from the Nevada Gaming Commission to casino companies is clear: Stay away from the newly legal industry, whether it’s pot use by customers or business relationships with the weed industry.

The commission discussed the issue Thursday during its monthly meeting at the request of the gaming industry and the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the enforcement arm of the state’s gaming regulatory structure.

Commission Chairman Tony Alamo said it had discussed the issue twice before — once after Nevada began selling pot for medical use in 2015 and then again last December, shortly after voters approved legalized recreational sales.

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