LTN can help your business make money

As local business owners, we know firsthand the importance and challenge of getting the word out to prospective customers. At Lake Tahoe News, we want to help you accomplish those goals.

LakeTahoeNews.net is the largest online-only news publication in Tahoe, serving up real-time news about Lake Tahoe seven days a week. Based in South Lake Tahoe, we have more than 100,000 unique monthly visitors, with tens of thousands of readers inside and outside the Tahoe basin. And we have the hard numbers to back that up.

We regularly cover breaking news events, with original reporting as well as content curated through associated news networks.

New stories are posted about every 90 minutes, seven days a week, meaning there’s always a reason to be checking LTN.

We have a growing email list, which allows readers to get a daily digest of headlines and snippets from the previous 24 hours, delivered to their inbox every morning.
Some of our special projects have included:
Affordable housing in Tahoe-Truckee.
A multipart series on mental health.
A deep-dive into our national parks system in honor of the 100th anniversary.
We cover news throughout the basin and in Truckee. Some of it is hard hitting, some whimsical. We write human interest stories about people doing interesting things — whether related to business, tourism, the environmental, or something else.

So that’s a little about our story. Let us help you reach prospective customers by telling the story about your company. You can do so by running display advertising with us. Like any digital marketing today, we can help you setup easy click-through tracking on your ads so that you can effectively measure the return on your investment within the first month.

We offer significant discounts on six-month and annual contracts.

Email us today at info@LakeTahoeNews.net with “want to advertise” in the subject line so we can get your business on board with Lake Tahoe News.

Grow a bigger garden in a smaller space

By Melinda Myers

Whether in the ground or on a balcony or deck, there’s always room to grow your own garden-fresh produce and beautiful flowers. Space-saving gardening techniques and products can help you increase productivity in any available space.

Consider elevated gardens and planter carts that not only save space, but make gardens more accessible. Movable carts like the Demeter Mobile Planter Cart allow you to grow flowers and produce in narrow spaces, store garden accessories and move the garden into the sunlight or out of the way of guests as needed.

Save more space by going vertical. Look for containers and raised garden beds with built-in trellises and plant supports. Just plant your pole beans, peas, cucumbers or tomatoes and attach them to the supports as they grow. Support the large fruit of squash and melons with cloth or macramé slings. Just cradle the fruit in the sling and secure it to the trellis. You’ll not only save space, but reduce disease problems and make harvesting a breeze.

Planter boxes with built-in trellises like this Apex trellis planter enable gardeners to maximize their garden space. Photo/Gardener’s Supply Company

Double your planting space by growing shade tolerant greens under cucumbers, growing on a cucumber or A-frame trellis. Set the trellis in place and plant the greens in early spring as soon as the soil is workable. Plant your cucumbers next to the trellis as soon as the soil warms. As your cucumbers grow they shade the greens below keeping them a bit cooler and extending the harvest season. Just make sure you can reach the greens beneath the supports for planting, weeding and harvesting.

Extend the growing season with a year round kitchen garden. Grow greens and herbs under lights attached to a raised bed on wheels. When the outdoor planting season arrives, remove the lights and roll your garden onto the patio or deck. Continue planting and harvesting outdoors until it is time to roll it back inside to start your indoor garden.

Or top your raised bed and containers with frost protective coverings. Many have built-in frames to support greenhouse covers, allowing you to plant earlier and harvest later in the season. And once the weather warms switch out the cover for an insect-protective fabric or mesh. These fabric coverings prevent insects like cabbage worms from damaging cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts and keep root maggots off radishes.

Select planters that complement your landscape design and gardening style. Wood, metal and colorful raised beds and containers add beauty, durability and growing space. Galvanized planters, cedar raised beds, and those in eye-catching colors found at Gardener’s Supply make your raised bed a beautiful focal point in the garden. Or fill your planters with tall grasses, cannas, elephant ears and other plants to create an attractive screen.

Look for multi-purpose furnishings and accessories to maximize your space and enjoyment. Fire pits that become a table or bench can double as a cooler, making relaxing and entertaining in small gardens a real possibility. Or how about planters with built-in hidden storage like the green box elevated planter Box. You’ll enjoy the convenience of having your garden tools handy, yet out of sight.

Use these space saving ideas to help increase the beauty, productivity and enjoyment your garden can provide. With the right combination of growing techniques and garden accessories you, your family and guests will create beautiful memories throughout the gardening season.

Melinda Myers is the author of more than 20 gardening books, including “Small Space Gardening.” She hosts the nationally syndicated “Melinda’s Garden Moment” TV and radio program.

How Vail Resorts conquered the ski industry

By Josh Dean, Men’s Journal

Since it was installed in 2010, the “orange bubble” chairlift at The Canyons in Utah has become the resort’s most iconic feature. The high-speed quad, which whisks skiers 8,700 feet to the summit of Lookout Peak in just nine minutes, was the first in North America to have heated seats and a plastic shield — the bubble — to protect riders from frigid air and snow along the way. It’s just like a gondola, but you don’t have to take off your skis. Any skier would love it.

But Robert Katz is not any skier. He’s the CEO of Vail Resorts, the $1.4 billion resort powerhouse that owns The Canyons. Vail bought the resort in 2013, and then — through a mix of luck, lawyers, and shrewd business — snatched up neighboring Park City Mountain Resort in 2014, merging the two into a single mega-resort now known as Park City.

Vail now owns 14 resorts, which have a total of 305 lifts, and Katz thinks long and hard about all the little things that go into making the properties successful — check-in times at the ski school, why this lift line is a minute longer than that one.

Read the whole story

Opinion: Feeling the sharp increase of pension costs

By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee

Dan Walters

The impact of ever-higher pension costs on California’s local governments, particularly cities, has been evident for years.

Pension burdens contributed to the recent bankruptcies of three cities and more are feeling the pinch.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, is ramping up its mandatory contributions to offset investment losses in the Great Recession, its subpar investment earnings more recently, and actuarial projections that retirees will live – and collect pensions – for longer periods.

Read the whole story

Hot new wines out of Napa Valley are white

By Elin McCoy, Bloomberg

When a collector friend offered me a glass of Screaming Eagle recently, I automatically pictured the cult winery’s polished, pricey red. Instead, I got my first taste of its sophisticated, wildly expensive, almost entirely unattainable white.

Chances are, when you think of Napa Valley, you think of red wine. Well, get ready to be surprised.

In this classic Cabernet territory, dozens of top-end wineries are focusing the same kind of every-detail-matters approach to whites that they’ve long lavished on their more prestigious reds.

Read the whole story

Heavy snow load destroys Stateline duplex

The weight from snow was too much for this roof in Stateline. Photo/Provided

Six feet of snow was too much for a roof on Upper Kingsbury grade. The weight forced the collapse of the duplex on Friday.

“That weight stressed the wood and the wood gave out,” Eric Guevin with Tahoe Douglas fire told Lake Tahoe News.

With no new snow in days, it was just fatigue on the structure.

No one was home at the time of the collapse. It is used as a vacation rental.

A man out walking his dog March 10 heard the roof cave in and called authorities.

The duplex is on Kingsbury Grade just below South Benjamin Drive. Damage is estimated at more than $100,000.

“The big thing is there are a log of roofs like that up there and all over the basin that people have not cleared,” Guevin said. “It is important to get it off of there.”

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Elegant Evening tickets on sale

Soroptimist International of Tahoe Sierra is hosting the 28th annual Elegant Evening on April 22 at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.

There will be food, wine and vodka tastings, raffles and a silent auction that allows online bidding prior to the event.

The Soul Experience featuring Trey Stone will provide the dance music.

The mission of Soroptimist International of Tahoe Sierra is to enhance and participate with actions and funds in projects locally and globally. A few examples are:

Project Middle School: provides support throughout the academic year, giving youth the skills needed to become productive adults including; anti-bullying assemblies, Kid’s Day, and the Junior S Club for girls.
Summer Book Program: books are given at the end of each school year to K-8 students to encourage reading during the summer break.
Scholarships: awarded to high school and college students.
Ongoing support for the Young Parents Program, Drug Store Project, Boys and Girls Club, Live Violence Free’s Girls Empowerment Project, National Alliance of Mentally Ill, BATS~Bringing Art to Schools, Kellermann Foundation, Tahoe Turning Point, and Tahoe Youth & Family Services.

Tickets are $65 through March 31, $75 after that; buy them online . The event is from 5:30-9:30pm.

Squaw crowd cheers Shiffrin onto victory

By Susan Wood

OLYMPIC VALLEY – Steeped in tradition and prestige, the women’s World Cup at Squaw Valley delivered a grand, heated environment for thousands of festive fans who turned out Saturday to see on-fire American ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin on top of the podium.

The season wraps up in Aspen next weekend, where Shiffrin is expected to clinch the World Cup title. She has 1,523 points, with Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia having 1,145 points. Stuhec was originally scheduled to race March 11 but did not. On Friday Stuhec crashed on her first run in the giant slalom.

If Shiffrin wins the World Cup title, she would join Americans Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller, Tamara McKinney, and Phil Mahre.

The second day of competitive ski racing at Squaw ended with a fourth overall slalom title in five years for Shiffrin — quite a prelude to celebrating her 22nd birthday Monday.

After raising her skis and getting high-fives from friends at the finish, a red-faced Shiffrin panted and shook her head as Lake Tahoe News asked what she thought of the course, which is considered the toughest on the race tour this year.

“Woo,” Shiffrin yelled out after realizing she won.

The Colorado skier’s second run of the day capped the weekendlong races that resulted in a cliffhanger at the finish, with Shiffrin’s second-to-last run and Swiss racer Wendy Holdener missing a gate near the finish. In the first run on March 11, Holdener was 0.02 seconds ahead of Shiffrin.

As Shiffrin walked from the staging area, spectators chanted: “Mikaela, Mikaela, Mikaela.”

On a spring-like, sunny day that had many spectators stripping down to one layer or less, many cowbell-toting, costume-clad enthusiasts – and their dogs – lined the sidelines to see the big-time spectacle set on the Red Dog course – the same setting as the 1960 Winter Olympic Games.

The 38-degree slope proved challenging for the competitors, with only 38 of 57 finishing the slalom course in the first run, in which Shiffrin shined with a time of 47.46 seconds.

Shiffrin also won the giant slalom Friday. GS is known for more sweeping slope carving, which resembles downhill racing, while slalom is more characteristic of sharper turns.

Shiffrin said she had a tough time near the top of her second slalom run.

“I don’t think I found a rhythm. I was fighting to stay in it the whole time,” she said.

Still, the racing phenom pulled it off – winning back-to-back disciplines on the same weekend.

The last time the granddaddy of all ski events graced Squaw was in 1969.

On the podium Saturday were from left Sarka Strachova from Czech Republic (second), Mikael Shiffrin of Colorado (first), and Bernadette Schild of Austria (second). Photo Copyright 2017 Carolyn E. Wright

The World Cup was an up and down emotional roller coaster for the competitors and their fans as the balmy weather conditions created a slushy surface that had the slipper volunteers cleaning the course after each skier.

By the second run it was so slushy the snow splashed some of the competitors’ goggles.

When some racers fell, the crowd bellowed a loud moan in unison. When others crossed the finish line or when announcer Olympic freestyle champion Jonny Moseley called out an American competitor, the crowd erupted.

“I was bummed. I just hooked the gate,” American Resi Stiegler from Jackson Hole, Wyo., told Lake Tahoe News at the bottom of the course. “I love this hill.”

People crowded around racer Erin Mielzynski of Canada asking for her autograph. She fell on her run as well, but continued to smile as she signed helmets, shirts and posters.

“It’s pretty cool to be here with the fans and being in North America,” she said.

This is precisely why Squaw Valley chief Andy Wirth said he wanted to bring World Cup back to the Lake Tahoe-area resort. Having it here was like a gift, especially for the youth who grace Squaw slopes.

Wirth told LTN he was pleased that everything was going as planned, minus a less than favorable forecast that earlier had predicted rain for Saturday.

“That would have been daunting,” Wirth said.

As it was, a lot of effort among 2,500 paid staffers and volunteers went into the event. At the Red Dog chairlift, one could tell crews had to dig out about 10 feet.

Shiffrin commended crews, noting in a post-race press conference that workers did an “incredible” job.

“I’ve never seen so much snow in my life,” she told LTN. “I imagine people here are sick of it.”

She equated the drive up to Squaw as a trip “back into history” in which old photos highlight walls of snow.

The racing sensation also said she respects the history associated with meeting the likes of American legend Tamara McKinney, a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Squaw Valley who won four World Cup season titles, and still lives and works in the area.

Shiffrin called her “a great inspiration,” and added she hoped to carry on the torch in the same way to the youth of today.

Bringing on a new generation

Jake Keil, 10, of Incline Village couldn’t be happier at the prospect of witnessing such a monumental event. He hiked up the snowy hill to find a place along the course ropes on crutches. The youngster competes on the Squaw team. He hurt his knee a year ago at Mount Rose and is trying to recover.

“We wouldn’t miss this,” his father, Kirk Keil, said with a beaming smile.

“Got your bell, right?” Keil said, turning to his son.

The father-son duo showed up to watch Shiffrin and Lila Lapanja because “she’s from Incline,” the patriarch said.

The crowd erupted when Shiffrin launched out of the gate.

“She should be extra careful (with these conditions),” Keil said.

“That was so fast,” the young Keil said, looking up at his father.

Eleven members and two coaches with the Mammoth Ski Team came up to witness their first World Cup event.

“It’s awesome that it’s so close to home – especially since we raced the same hill,” Kendall Lach, 15, said. The California ski team was pulling for Shiffrin, the star of the weekend.

The Colorado skier comes across as a natural who at age 7 won her first slalom event.

Her success was something notably expected by her agent Killian Albrecht, an Austrian racing legend in his own right.

Albrecht, who started representing Shiffrin at age 15, told LTN the course can be tricky. And it was.

That didn’t spoil the spirits of all who enjoyed the festivity-filled weekend.

“Anytime I get to see the best in the world, I try to do it,” said Berkeley resident Andy Bennett, who bought a VIP package that qualified him for early-morning first tracks. Bennett, who has a house in Tahoe City, often skis at Alpine Meadows, but loved Squaw.

There’s something about Squaw.

Coming in third in the slalom event, Bernadette Schild of Austria told the press she relished returning to a place where she has quite a connection. Her family is close to the Poulsens. Wayne and Sandy Poulsen were founders of the ski resort.

“It’s like coming home. I spent so many summers here,” Schild said, adding she appreciated the warm American welcome.

“The American crowd is amazing. They knew our names. I never heard anyone thank me in Europe for giving me a show like they did here,” she said.

Letter: Flood insurance information

To the community,

I read the article relating to flood insurance published March 7. We specialize in the flood insurance niche throughout all 50 states.

Unfortunately, much of the information covered in this article is incomplete and misleading for the homeowners. We have access to seven-plus different private flood insurance alternatives, plus the NFIP. The difference in premiums can be thousands per year.

Ninety-five percent of the insurance industry has very little knowledge of the whole flood insurance market. It’s sad to hear that agents are taking two days to write a flood policy. They are really quite simple and can be written in less than 30 minutes. This unfortunately, is the norm in the industry. We also have some unique flood products that will cover up to $5 million for higher net-worth properties.

There is much more the consumer needs to know about this whole flood insurance situation.

Emerson Willis, Yep Insurance CEO and co-founder

Wild & Scenic Film Fest returns to South Shore

The 12th annual Wild & Scenic Film Festival South Lake Tahoe combines award-winning environmental and adventure films with the energy of local activism.

Featured films will include outdoor adventures, environmental battles and inspirational stories of people making a difference. The film festival will take place March 24 at the MontBleu showroom in Stateline.

Advance tickets are $12 for Sierra Nevada Alliance members, $15 for non-members and $10 for students. Tickets can be purchased online and at Patagonia South Lake Tahoe. Tickets will be available at at the door for $20. Doors open at 6pm, films start at 7pm.