It may be a while before some of the higher passes in the Sierra open.

Here is information from Caltrans:

Highway 89 – Monitor Pass: Snow removal has begun from Highway 395 to the Alpine County line. There is approximately 5 feet of snowpack at the Mono/Alpine county line. Road repair is required before reopening. There is no estimated date for reopening the highway at this time.

Highway 108 – Sonora Pass: Snow removal equipment is in place and starting to work on the lower sections of the highway. The snowpack is estimated to be 5 to 12 feet on the highway. There is no estimated date for reopening the highway at this time.

Highway 270 – Bodie Road: All snow has been removed but the highway remains closed at the request of Bodie State Park personnel.

Highway 120 west – Tioga Pass from the junction of Highway 395 to the Yosemite National Park Gate: Snow removal equipment is in place and starting to work on the lower sections of the highway. The snowpack is estimated to be between 8 to 15 feet on the highway, with up to 50 foot snowdrifts in some locations. There is no estimated date for reopening the highway at this time.

By Meghin Delaney, Las Vegas Review-Journal

There are absolutely no ineffective teachers in Nevada’s worst-performing schools.

That’s according to the most recent teacher evaluation data provided by the state Department of Education. Statewide, only 55 of the 20,785 teachers rated after the 2015-16 year under the Nevada Educator Performance Framework were deemed “ineffective” — the lowest of four possible categories.

And none of them worked at what the state considers the most underperforming schools. You’ll find more ineffective teachers working in what the state considers its best schools, according to the most recent ratings of the five-star system issued after the 2013-14 year.

Read the whole story

By Lake Tahoe News

Consultants hire by El Dorado County have a habit of not abiding by state law that requires them to disclose financial interests.

This could be a problem if consultants have competing financial interests that lead to illegal favors.

The county’s Community Development Agency was singled out in a letter that auditor Joe Harn sent to the Board of Supervisors.

“The county’s land use planners are required to make public financial disclosures of their income, gifts received, etc.  Consultants that CDA uses and relies on to make land use recommendations are required by state law to make the same disclosures. The county and CDA have not been asking for the required disclosures,” Harn wrote.

CAO Don Ashton believes the problem should be resolved now.

“I recommended the board amend a contract to identify the auditor as the contract administrator for a consultant providing financial impact analysis studies for the Community Development Agency. As a result of this recommendation, Mr. Harn identified this error and between the CAO’s office and the auditor-controller’s office, we will take appropriate corrective action to educate our staff, correct any deficiencies, and prevent this from occurring in the future,” Ashton told Lake Tahoe News.

Harn wants all county consulting contracts to be reviewed to make sure they are in compliance.

If they could do it all over, a fire station would never have been built at Golden Bear.

Lake Valley Fire Protection District is in the preliminary stages of looking to build a station elsewhere. The primary parcel being looked at is at the corner of Pioneer Trail and Black Bart Avenue, which is owned by South Tahoe Public Utility District. A post office used to be on this site.

“It’s on the edge of the district, but it’s nice open country, easy to get around,” Fire Chief Tim Alameda told Lake Tahoe News. He’s walked and driven around the area, but has not done a full assessment to determine if that location would provide adequate coverage for the department.

Problems with the current station 6 include it being on a stream environmental zone, it’s hard to maneuver engines there, it’s too small and it’s not up to code.

South Tahoe PUD will be discussing the matter at its meeting on Thursday.

While money is an issue for the district, Alameda believes it’s better to start the dialog now before the need is dire.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Sammy Caiola, Sacramento Bee

Matt and Kimberly Kinney always travel light when they head into the woods, leaving behind everything but the necessities and keeping their backpacks as slim as possible. Two summers ago they decided to add one very heavy item to the packing list: their 22-pound infant.

In July 2015, the Sacramento parents took their son Thomas, then 11 months old, backpacking on the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail. The adventure was so successful that they plan to repeat it this summer, this time adding their second son James to the mix. Earlier this month, Kimberly, a speech pathologist, and Matt, a geologist, spoke at REI Sacramento about how to successfully backpack with little ones, sharing their trials and tribulations with about a dozen curious families.

Bringing an infant into the elements sounds bizarre to most people, Kimberly said, but it felt like a given for the young couple, who have been logging miles together for about six years.

Read the whole story

Oreo

Oreo is a very friendly little Dachshund-rat terrier mix who is 3 years old. Her tail goes a mile a minute, and she loves to go for walks. Oreo probably weighs about 15 pounds, the perfect size for just about any household.

Oreo is spayed, microchipped, tested for heart worm, 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.

— Karen Kuentz

By Kathryn Reed

Enforcement is what people have been calling for in regards to vacation home rentals and the city finally delivered on that request.

The South Lake Tahoe City Council on Tuesday will hear a report about the outcome of the 90-day enhanced enforcement. The council is likely to discuss the possibility of continuing the added patrols during peak tourism months in the summer and winter.

“The neighbors are clearly seeing patrol vehicles come through with the VHR patrol. They are being listened to,” Police Chief Brian Uhler told Lake Tahoe News.

He believes the combination of the rules the council has put in place, the storms happening on weekends, VHR owners putting pressure on tenants and the extra patrols have contributed to make vacation home rentals be less of a problem in town.

The High Sierra Patrol workers did not interact directly with people at the VHR, but instead reported back to the community service officer who made the face-to-face contact.

The security teams worked from mid-December through mid-March, daily from 4pm-2am. High Sierra Patrol personnel were tasked with checking on 120 properties with closed permits to see if they were operating illegally, houses where a complaint had been filed and residential areas outside of the tourist core.

Findings include:

·      26 properties were operating without a valid permit

·      33 properties are on a watch list because of the higher number of calls

·      85 rental signs were not visible because of snow, lighting or a sign didn’t exist

·      36 VHR owners received an advisory notice

·      10 owners were issued warnings

·      3 administrative citations were given

·      Dispatch during the same time frame received 68 calls for loud noise, of which 16 were from VHRs

·      In addition to those 68 calls, dispatch received specific VHR complaints – 14 for noise, 20 for parking and four for trash.

Where people were cited, the city sent out bills totaling $26,750.

The cost to the city for High Sierra Patrol for those 90 days was $26,310.

Earlier this month the council approved the hiring of a full-time permanent community service officer who will handle VHR issues. This has been a temporary position.

Uhler said it has been difficult in the past to keep people in this CSO job. Having more consistency with staff has also made for better tracking of problem properties and getting out a consistent message.

By Dan Roe, Outside

You have no idea how tough [insert sport] is.

Whether we say it out loud or just repeat it to ourselves, many of us share this sentiment. As American novelist Mary McCarthy once said, “We are the hero of our own story.”

That said, some activities are legitimately harder than others, and in the realm of outdoor sports, a few are in a league of their own. Take rock climbing, for instance, which requires explosive upper-body strength, problem solving, and crux-time focus. Downhill mountain bikers regularly risk shattered bones, while open-water swimmers push themselves to the limit in unforgiving conditions. Nordic skiers force their bodies deep into oxygen debt, and ultrarunners—well, you get the idea. 

But how can we quantify which one is actually the toughest? Here’s how: we chose five competitive sports that we feel are tough to learn, can be dangerous to perform, and require a high degree of skill and fitness.

Read the whole story

Sarah Hockensmith of the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science will be giving a presentation May 25 about the diverse landscapes of the Tahoe region from lake level to the tops of the mountains. The talk will cover how different flower, tree, bird, and mammal species adapt as they go up in elevation and what unique creatures you can find around specific elevations in the area.

To celebrate Tahoe’s natural history, TINS is hosting the Tahoe Nature Chase during 2017.

The talk starts at 6:30pm at Alpenglow Sports in Tahoe City. A donation of $5 is suggested.

The option to join the season long Tahoe Nature Chase will also be offered.

By Sage Sauerbrey, Moonshine Ink Staff

Ninety-nine percent of the species to live on Earth are extinct. Meteors. Over-hunting. Low sex drive. Extinction has taken many forms over the years, but the uncontested winner is habitat loss. Enter the modern Lake Tahoe ski bum.

Shackled with an incompatible ratio between median income and median home price, the modern ski bum’s diminishing habitat is fueling an extinction that could mean the end of the ski town as we know it. (At least low sex drive isn’t the issue.)

The caveat to calling out extinction in this case, however, is defining the culture that is threatened. A bum is commonly viewed as existing on society’s periphery; their time spent goes by relatively unnoticed. But in ski towns this has never been the case.

Here, the ski bum has always been the protagonist, a cultural icon exemplify the reason we all shovel our way through Sierra winters and make the sacrifices necessary to live in a mountain town. But are we losing this unspoken hero? As ski towns become increasingly gentrified, the ski bum has two choices common in the natural world: disappear, or adapt and evolve. To find out which, we spoke with a handful of local icons to define this endangered culture, and how it’s holding on.

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