• This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Tahoe Rim Trail Association and the 10th anniversary of the completion of the trail that circles the Lake Tahoe Basin.

• The Resort at Squaw Creek is celebrating its 20th season.

• California is taking $3 more from each parking fine issued by cities for the Safe Trial Court Trust Fund. To deal with this, South Lake Tahoe is raising rates by $5 so it can cash in, too.

• Any check issued by South Lake Tahoe for less than $15 that is not claimed within a year will have the money go back into the fund it was drawn on or the general fund without notice to the payee.

• Two orphaned bear cubs rehabbed at Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care were recently released near Truckee.

• South Tahoe Public Utility District now has agendas for board meetings on the home page of the website.  STPUD’s website may always be accessed by clicking on the square ad on Lake Tahoe News.

Publisher’s note: This is reprinted from the November 1973 Lake Tahoe Historical Society newsletter.

Gardner Mountain was named after Matthew Culbertson Gardner, an early day lumberman of the Tahoe area.

In 1872 Gardner acquired a large timber holding at the south end of Tahoe. His initial operations consisted of felling and splitting fir and cedar close to Tahoe’s waters for cordwood and shakes. When the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company and Walter Hobart’s Nevada Lumber Company appeared on the Tahoe scene, Gardner secured a major contract from them and soon began large scale logging operations.

Gardner constructed Tahoe’s first steampowered standard-gauge railroad. As his operations flourished, he installed a new track, tore it up and reinstalled it over and over again into new sections of uncut forest land to keep up with the Glenbrook Mills demand for lumber. His roundhouse and machine shops were located near the present entrance to Camp Richardson.

After thirteen years in the lumbering business, Gardner found himself financially overextended, and in 1885 he was forced into bankruptcy. His railroad was thus abandoned and his rolling stock sold. “Lucky” Baldwin, who had been eyeing Gardner’s holdings for quite some time, is reported to have offered Gardner the sum of $4,000 for all his land.

Gardner evidently agreed to the arrangement, for he soon returned to his ranch in the Carson Valley and eventually had Gardnerville, Nevada named after him.

Soroptimist International of South Lake Tahoe handed out a slew of money Wednesday.

The service organization’s annual fall wine tasting is its biggest fundraiser. The group takes the cash and returns it to the community.

On Feb. 9, $28,000 was given out.

The recipients are:

• South Lake Tahoe Police Department and El Dorado County Social Services, $500

• South Tahoe Middle School (6th grade winter outdoor education), $1,200

• Clean Tahoe (Dinner Table Project), $2,000

• South Lake Tahoe Children’s Choral, $1,400

• OPEN, $3,000

• CASA El Dorado, $1,250

• Tahoe Arts Project, $1,000

• Police Activities League, $2,000

• Sugar Pine Foundation, $1,000

• South Lake Tahoe Habitat for Humanity, $500

• South Lake Tahoe Cancer League, $500

• South Lake Tahoe Family Resource Center, $2,000

• Christmas Cheer, $3,000

• Lake Tahoe Bicycle Coalition, $400

• Tahoe Art League, $450

• Tahoe Youth & Family Services (Drug Store Project), $800

• South Lake Tahoe Women’s Center, $4,000

• SISLT (PEMA counseling, Solar Cooker project) $2,100

• Whittell High School (Sober Graduation), $150

• South Tahoe High School (Sober Graduation) $750.

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Jan. 6, 2011, Auburn Journal.

A push to allow developers to “clean up” eyesores in Lake Tahoe has left a black mark on four of the five Placer County supervisors’ voting records.

Recently, four members of the board voted to oust Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency because she didn’t vote in step with other supervisors.

The issue at hand: allow developers to take over run-down buildings, clean them up and possibly make them bigger.

This is done through tourist-accommodation unit transfers. The transfers include hotel, motel and vacation rental rooms that developers can buy the rights to from existing projects in the Lake Tahoe area.

Supervisor Kirk Uhler said the board looks at the transfers as a way to encourage the retirement of old units that have no erosion controls and are causing problems with lake clarity.

The idea is a good one at first glance. Lake Tahoe is a magnet for outdoor recreation enthusiasts year-round and fixing up old motels helps make the jewel of the foothills shine even brighter.

But a problem surfaces when developers can take what was once a small motel and turn it into a much larger one. One consequence is more traffic in an area that is already fairly congested.

Read the whole story

By Kathryn Reed

Schussing down the slopes of Sierra-at-Tahoe it’s hard to tell anything is different this season. And that’s exactly what resort officials want.

Less than a month before the South Shore resort opened Nov. 23 for the 2010-11 season, its sister resort, Northstar-at-Tahoe, was acquired by Vail Resorts. (CNL Lifestyle Properties still owns the land and lifts; it’s the management rights that the Colorado company bought.)

Sierra has noticed some of its guests are different this season. This is because the acquisition allowed this year’s Heavenly Mountain Resort (also a Vail property) season passholders to ski at Sierra.

John Rice

“We certainly appreciate the extra business. I think we have made some people happy who didn’t know what we are all about,” John Rice, Sierra’s general manager, told Lake Tahoe News.

A couple from the Sacramento area on Feb. 6 said they knew about the sale, but thought Vail had bought Sierra, too. They were relieved to learn Sierra is being left alone.

Sierra’s day care has seen an influx of patrons, mainly parents with Heavenly passes. Retail sales patterns have changed with the newcomers, too.

“They ran a special for Heavenly passholders. We sold a ton of helmets that were sitting around,” Rice said.

Food sales are the same with the newbies, but beverage consumption is up.

“They like our pricing in the bar. The bartenders like it because they tip well,” Rice said.

Despite the influx of skiers and boarders, the parking lot and slopes have not been inundated – which was a concern of Sierra’s. On Super Bowl Sunday it wasn’t crazy. It was a different story on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but that Monday is traditionally a busy day – especially when it’s warm enough for short-sleeves at the Tiki Bar.

“We are doing better than last year and last year was a great year,” Rice said. “We’ve always been a good little cash cow. In a good year our margins are phenomenal; in a bad year we break even.”

At one time, Booth Creek owned 11 ski resorts. It’s down to one – Sierra.

Sierra-at-Tahoe is the last resort its parent company owns. Photos/Kathryn Reed

In 1946, Vern Sprock opened what was then called Sierra Ski Ranch. The resort moved to its present location in 1968. In 1993, the Fibreboard Corporation bought it. Three years later Booth Creek acquired it and changed the name to Sierra-at-Tahoe.

Rice is not worried Booth Creek will unload Sierra. He said there’s always speculation and rumor, but nothing is on the horizon that he has been made aware of.

He knew about the Vail-Northstar transaction before it was signed.

“I got a call from the owner before the deal was completed. He said, ‘I have full confidence in you. (Sierra) has been a strong performer. We’re looking forward to another great year’,” Rice said.

Rice acknowledges a few bumps occurred early in the season – mostly surrounding what days passes were valid and where people could pick them up. Signs had to be changed that mentioned the Double Whammy pass (a Sierra-Northstar pass that went away with the sale).

Season passes picked up in December still have both resorts on it even though it’s not good at both.

It’s in the offices at the resort near Echo Summit where change has been most noticeable. Four full time (PR, sales, accounting) and one part time position (human resources) have been added. This is because some of those jobs were shared with Northstar.

Views of Lake Tahoe from a rare groomed Castle run on Feb. 6.

Vertical Plus, the program that allows riders to use a special line for an extra fee, will be looked at in the off-season because it was tied together with Northstar. The loyalty program will also likely be revamped to reflect a Sierra-only culture starting next season.

Rice isn’t ruling out any possibilities for what might be in store for Sierra.

“We’ll continue to talk to Vail and see if they want to do something going forward (with season passes) and we’ll consider what else is out there,” Rice said. But he stressed, right now, “No negotiating is taking place.”

What will Sierra-at-Tahoe in 2011-12 be like? That answer is an unknown, but Rice and company are working on it.

John Steinbeck dropped out of Stanford to write his first novel “Cup of Gold” – a swashbuckling Caribbean pirate romance which he completed at Tahoe’s Cascade Lake just prior to taking a job at the state Fish Hatchery just east of Tahoe City.

There he met and wooed his first wife, terrorized visiting females, bragged of his sexual exploits, shot holes in the ceiling with a revolver, and got himself fired — never to return to Tahoe for the remainder of his long career.

Yet Tahoe is just as much “Steinbeck Country” as Salinas or Monterey because this was the place Steinbeck first struggled to learn and master the lonely craft of writing.

Author Scott Lankford will present a public lecture titled Steinbeck at Tahoe: Hatching his First Novel on May 31 from 7-8pm at the UC Davis Tahoe City Field Station (also known as the Historic Fish Hatchery) at 2400 Lake Forest Road, Tahoe City.

Bob Dog Pizza at Meyers Station is hosting a fundraiser for Tahoe Valley Elementary School to raise money to buy snowshoes for the PE program.

The pizza fest is Feb. 10 from 11am-9pm.

Bob Dog is at 3141 Highway 50 in Meyers. Eat in, pick up, take-n-bake or delivery — in Meyers, Y, Gardner Mountain, Keys, Montgomery Estates, Sierra Tract. (530.577.2364)

Mention Tahoe Valley so 25 percent of the profits are donated back to the school.

Tahoe Rim Trail Association has received an $8,000 grant from REI to support volunteerism within the organization.

The TRTA depends on volunteer support to meet the ever increasing demand for sustainable outdoor recreational opportunities in the Lake Tahoe Basin. To meet these demands, the organization recruits, trains and supervises more than 1,000 volunteers each year to build and maintain the world-class 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail and provide quality educational opportunities through guided hikes and back country camps.

The funds from REI will go directly to support volunteer recruitment, training and retention and allow TRTA to increase the number of youth participating in its Youth Backcountry Camps from 44 to 68 in 2011.

By Reno Gazette-Journal

The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office today confirmed that a body found above the White’s Creek Trailhead is that of missing hiker Rick Gentry.

Deputy Armando Avina said that two Washoe County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue volunteers were training their cadaver dog, Geiger, when they discovered the body in the area above the Whites Creek Trailhead around 3pm Monday.

They immediately reported it to the sheriff’s office.

Read the whole story

The San Francisco Giants World Series trophy is making it rounds, with a date set for Reno.

It will be on the UNR campus at Joe Crowley Student Union Ballroom, 1664 N. Virginia St. on March 8 from 5-7pm.

A Lake Tahoe date is yet to be announced, but is still listed as a destination on the baseball team’s website.