To the community,

Wearing “Rotarians at Work!” T-shirts, five members of the South Lake Tahoe Rotary Club ladled out heaping servings of the evening’s dinner fare of a “Fanciful Frittata”. The mushroom, onion, bacon and bell pepper frittata was the main course of the “Adopt A Day of Nourishment” dinner that the Rotary Club sponsored on Jan. 20.

Full of energy and demonstrating the Rotary motto of “service above self” attitude, Rotarians Randy Vogelgesang, David Jinkens, Cynthea Preston, Ruth Goshorn and Buck Barkley graciously assisted the B&B volunteers with the meal’s setup, serving and cleanup. Throughout the dinner event each of the Rotary Club volunteers expressed their strong convictions about “service above self” and their enjoyment in giving back to the community.

The SLT Rotary Club is a community service organization dedicated to doing a community service every month and B&B is grateful to have been selected as “Rotarians at Work” February project. The Rotary’s goal to positively affect South Shore community members was clearly demonstrated by their financially hosting and serving a hot, nutritious dinner to all those who attended B&B’s Monday evening dinner.

For more information about B&B, go online or find us on Facebook.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

 

Publisher’s note: This is one of a series of blurbs about how the lack of winter is impacting the Lake Tahoe Basin. If you have an idea, please email it to info@LakeTahoeNews.net.

More dry weather is likely to mean more bark beetles destroying pine trees in the Sierra.

“There typically is a one- to two-year lag between when drought starts and when we start seeing increased bark beetle activity. While beetle activity started to increase in 2013, aerial surveys still recorded a fairly normal amount of tree mortality,” CalFire said in a statement. “There was significant mortality in certain areas, but overall mortality was not high. In contrast, tree mortality in 2014 is likely to be much higher. When the drought does end, there too will be a lag time before beetle activity dies down.”

California’s driest year on record was 2013, as well as the second consecutive year of below normal precipitation for the state. Without adequate precipitation, trees do not have enough water for normal growth and may be severely drought stressed by the end of the summer. For pines, true firs and some other conifers, bark beetles are the pest that typically kills drought-stressed trees. As bark beetle numbers increase, tree mortality increases. By the end of 2013 there was clear evidence that bark beetle numbers were increasing.

For individual, high value trees, supplemental watering and application of pesticide sprays (registered for use on pines) to prevent bark beetle attack are viable options and have been met with limited success, according to CalFire. For trees in forest stands and plantations, these treatments are not practical

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

If predicted rain and snow arrive this week, U.S. Forest Service fuels management crews will resume prescribed fire operations in several locations around the Lake Tahoe Basin beginning Jan. 28.

Operations will take place on the South Shore in the Luther Pass Campground off of Highway 89, on the West Shore off of Bunker Drive near Tahoe City and off of Chalet Road near Alpine Meadows ski area, and on the East Shore off Easy Street on Lower Kingsbury Grade. Operations may continue through the weekend, weather, staffing, and conditions permitting

All prescribed fire projects are conducted in accordance with an approved prescribed fire burn plan. Burn plans describe specific conditions under which operations are conducted including the weather, number of personnel, opportunities to minimize smoke impacts, and available burn days. This information is used to decide when and where to burn.

By Jim Carlton, Wall Street Journal

EL DORADO HILLS — A severe drought plaguing much of the West is also bringing bits of its past back to life, as long-submerged historic artifacts and natural features are exposed by receding lake levels.

Near this Sacramento suburb, man-made Folsom Lake has receded to less than one-fifth of its capacity amid bone-dry conditions in California, recently revealing outskirts of a ghost town called Mormon Island founded during the mid-19th century gold rush. On an unseasonably warm winter day recently, throngs of visitors descended on the cracked mud flats of the reservoir to inspect hand-forged nails, rusted hinges and other vestiges of frontier life that were inundated when the lake was created in 1955.

California is entering its third year of drought, while much of the West has been abnormally dry for more than a decade.

In Utah, the decline of Lake Powell on the Colorado River to less than half its capacity in the past decade has uncovered artifacts including Native American ruins known as Fort Moki by 19th century pioneers. It has also restored some natural features, such as a towering waterfall called Cathedral in the Desert, that had been buried when the federal government dammed the river to create the giant reservoir in the 1960s.

Read the whole story

By USSA

PARK CITY — The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association has nominated a record 94 athletes to the 2014 U.S. Olympic Team that will compete in Sochi. Fifteen are from the greater Lake Tahoe area, including Mammoth.

The team includes eight athletes who have previously won Olympic gold.

The team is significantly larger than the 76 athletes named in 2010 because of the addition of halfpipe and slopestyle skiing, slopestyle snowboarding, parallel slalom snowboarding and women’s ski jumping.

Athletes range in age from 15 to 37.

Olympian Todd Lodwick was named to his sixth Olympic Team, matching the most ever by a Winter Olympian.

The Games begin with women’s moguls and men’s slopestyle snowboarding qualifications Feb. 6, a day before the Opening Ceremony.

The Olympic gold medalists competing for more hardware are:

Billy Demong, nordic combined large hill

Kelly Clark, halfpipe snowboarding

Hannah Kearney, moguls

Ted Ligety, alpine combined

Julia Mancuso, giant slalom

Bode Miller, alpine super combined

Hannah Teter, halfpipe snowboarding

Shaun White, halfpipe snowboarding,

Those who have won the most medals are:

Miller, alpine skiing – 5

Mancuso, alpine skiing – 3

White, halfpipe snowboarding – 2

Demong, nordic combined – 2.

The athletes are:

Alpine

Men

David Chodounsky, Crested Butte, Colo.

Erik Fisher, Middleton, Idaho

Travis Ganong, Squaw Valley

Jared Goldberg, Holladay, Utah

Tim Jitloff, Reno

Nolan Kasper, Warren, Vt.

Ted Ligety, Park City

Bode Miller, Franconia, N.H.

Steven Nyman, Sundance, Utah

Marco Sullivan, Squaw Valley

Andrew Weibrecht, Lake Placid, N.Y.

Women

Stacey Cook, Mammoth

Julia Ford, Holderness, N.H.

Julia Mancuso, Squaw Valley

Megan McJames, Park City

Laurenne Ross, Bend, Ore.

Mikaela Shiffrin, Eagle-Vail, Colo.

Leanne Smith, North Conway, N.H.

Resi Stiegler, Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Jacqueline Wiles, Aurora, Ore.

Cross Country

Men

Erik Bjornsen, Winthrop, Wash.

Kris Freeman, Concord, N.H.

Brian Gregg, Winthrop, Wash.

Simi Hamilton, Aspen

Noah Hoffman, Aspen

Torin Koos, Leavenworth, Wash.

Andy Newell, Shaftsbury, Vt.

Women

Sadie Bjornsen, Winthrop, Wash.

Holly Brooks. Anchorage, Alaska

Sophie Caldwell, Peru, Vt.

Jessie Diggins, Afton, Minn.

Kikkan Randall, Anchorage, Alaska

Ida Sargent, Orleans, Vt.

Liz Stephen, East Montpelier, Vt.

Freestyle

Men’s Aerials

Mac Bohonnon, Madison, Conn.

Women’s Aerials

Ashley Caldwell, Ashburn, Va.

Emily Cook, Belmont, Mass.

Men’s Halfpipe

Aaron Blunck, Crested Butte, Colo.

Lyman Currier, Boulder, Colo.

David Wise, Reno

Torin Yater-Wallace, Aspen

Women’s Halfpipe

Maddie Bowman, Meyers

Annalisa Drew, Andover, Mass.

Brita Sigourney, Carmel

Angeli VanLaanen, Bellingham, Wash.

Men’s Moguls

Patrick Deneen, Cle Elum, Wash.

Bradley Wilson, Butte, Mont.

Women’s Moguls

Hannah Kearney, Norwich, Vt.

Heidi Kloser, Vail

Heather McPhie, Bozeman, Mont.

Eliza Outtrim, Hamden, Conn.

Men’s Slopestyle

Bobby Brown, Breckenridge, Colo.

Joss Christensen, Park City

Nick Goepper, Lawrenceburg, Ind.

Gus Kenworthy, Telluride, Colo.

Women’s Slopestyle

Keri Herman, Bloomington, Minn.

Julia Krass, Hanover, N.H.

Devin Logan, W. Dover, Vt.

Maggie Voisin, Whitefish, Mont.

Men’s Skicross

John Teller, Mammoth Lakes

Nordic Combined

Billy Demong, Vermontville, N.Y.

Bryan Fletcher, Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Taylor Fletcher, Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Todd Lodwick, Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Ski Jumping

Men

Nick Alexander, Lebanon, N.H.

Nick Fairall, Andover, N.H.

Peter Frenette, Saranac Lake, N.Y.

Anders Johnson, Park City,

Women

Sarah Hendrickson, Park City

Jessica Jerome, Park City

Lindsey Van, Park City

Snowboarding

Men’s Halfpipe

Greg Bretz, Mammoth Lakes

Danny Davis, Truckee

Taylor Gold, Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Shaun White, Carlsbad (rides for Northstar)

Women’s Halfpipe

Kelly Clark, W. Dover, Vt.

Kaitlyn Farrington, Sun Valley, Idaho

Arielle Gold, Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Hannah Teter, Meyers

PGS/PSL

Justin Reiter, Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Men’s Snowboardcross

Nick Baumgartner, Iron River, Mich.

Alex Deibold, Manchester Center, Vt.

Nate Holland, Squaw Valle

Trevor Jacob, Mammoth Lakes

Women’s Snowboardcross

Faye Gulini, Salt Lake City

Jackie Hernandez, Londonderry, Vt.

Lindsey Jacobellis, Stratton Mountain, Vt.

Men’s Slopestyle

Chas Guldemond, Reno

Sage Kotsenburg, Park City

Ryan Stassel, Anchorage

Shaun White, Carlsbad (rides for Northstar)

Women’s Slopestyle

Jamie Anderson, Meyers

Jessika Jensen, Rigby, Idaho

Karly Shorr, Truckee

Ty Walker, Stowe, Vt.

 

By Tamara Jacobi, MindBodyGreen

You’ve been training for months, maybe even years, for the big race. Yet, a quick snap, crackle or pop and it’s game over. Instead of heading to the starting line, you’re sitting on the couch.

Did you know that sports injuries are often a sign of nutrition imbalance? Many athletes have come to think of injuries as simply part of training and being “sporty.” At the same time, athletes have a tendency to focus their diet on a basic set of sports nutrition “rules” that concentrate on specific ratios of proteins, carbs and calories, with little attention to nutritional quality. Coincidence? I’m not so sure.

Knee pain, pulled muscles, tweaked backs — the list goes on, and once injury strikes, few us have the time or the patience to sit around and let our injuries heal properly. The result? Significant pain, inflammation, a serious interruption in training and sometimes long-term damage.

Read the whole story

The Nevada Department of Public Safety, Office of Traffic Safety is sponsoring a Zero Teen Fatalities traffic safety message contest for high school students.

Nevada students may participate by producing a 30-second video, a 30-second radio announcement or a billboard/bus shelter poster.

Winners will receive prizes and the opportunity for their entry to be featured in public venues, including movie theaters or on display in public buildings and bus shelters.

The deadline for registration is Feb. 1 and submissions are due March 15. There is not cost to participate.

Register online.

 

By Dominique Mosbergen, Huffington Post

Russia’s Sochi, Canada’s Vancouver, France’s Chamonix, Japan’s Nagano and California’s Squaw Valley all have one thing in common: These former and future Winter Olympics venues are each known as prime sites for cold-weather sports, and as breathtaking havens for sporting enthusiasts. But according to a new study, these winter wonderlands are now under threat from climate change and soon may no longer be cold enough to play host to elite winter sports competitions like the Winter Games.

Researchers at Canada’s University of Waterloo and Austria’s Management Center Innsbruck say that if global warming continues at its current rate, only 10 of the previous 19 Winter Olympics host cities will be cold enough to reliably host the Games in the 2050s. By the end of the century, that number could drop to a dismal six. “The cultural legacy of the world’s celebration of winter sport is increasingly at risk,” said Professor Daniel Scott, a Canada Research Chair in Global Tourism and lead author of the study, per a media release. “Fewer and fewer traditional winter sports regions will be able to host a Olympic Winter Games in a warmer world.”

Troublingly, even if the world takes steps to reduce carbon emissions and therefore lessen the impact of global warming in the coming years, the researchers said that the number of cities that could host the games in the middle and end of the century will still fall dramatically (see the infographic below). By the 2050s, at least four Winter Games venues — including Sochi, this year’s host city — will be too warm to host the competition, even if active steps to curb global warming are taken.

Read the whole story

By Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Sun

For years, gaming regulators have created barriers between debit or credit cards and slot machines so that gamblers wouldn’t drain their bank accounts or ruin their credit ratings.

While they’ve allowed automated teller machines at casino properties, regulators have never crossed the line of enabling players to put their cards into a slot machine to access money directly.

But now, a Las Vegas company is proposing a change in state gaming regulations that would allow the use of a prepaid card for slots that puts casinos one step closer to a player’s bank account.

Read the whole story

• Squaw Valley is hosting Winter Games viewing parties Feb. 8-18 and Feb. 21 at Rocker@Squaw. Squaw Valley athletes Julia Mancuso, Travis Ganong and Nate Holland are going to Russia.

• Liberty Utilities customers starting April 1 will see a carbon pollution charge and credit on bills. Find out more online.  Then click on the Customer Support tab at the top, then select Greenhouse Gas Mandates in the left-hand menu.

• As of Jan. 22, Genoa Lakes Properties, including the lakes and resort courses, have been acquired by the Genoa Golf Group IV LLC. The ownership consists of a family trust and two LLC’s all of which are either headquartered in Northern Nevada or San Antonio. The fourth party is two Nevada residents who will be the operating partners.

• Sierra-at-Tahoe and Inspired Media Inc. are bringing the Tanner Hall Invitational back on March 29 from 8am-4pm. More than  20 of the world’s best freeskiers will compete on a course created specifically for this event at West Bowl.

• Here are the El Dorado-Tahoe and Sierra roadwork schedules for the week from Caltrans.