A candle tipping over is being blamed for a structure fire in South Lake Tahoe on Monday morning.

The owner of the home on Rubicon Trail had her hair slighted burned and was taken to Barton Memorial Hospital for smoke inhalation. She is expected to be released soon.

Everyone else in the house, including a cat, were able to get out without injury. The call came in at 8:33am April 16.

“(There) was a candle on a nightstand. The owner had fallen asleep on the bed, knocked the pillow over and it caught on fire,” Battalion Chief Tim Spencer told Lake Tahoe News.

The house, except for the bedroom, is livable. The fire was contained to that one room. There is potential smoke damage, though, in other parts of the house.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Emily Zentner, Sacramento Bee

California Highway Patrol rescuers hoisted a hiker out of a remote location in Kyburz after the hiker fell 30 feet from a rock formation and caught the episode on camera..

The hiker, a 52-year-old Napa resident, was rescued by a CHP helicopter and sustained major injuries in the fall on Friday, according to a CHP Facebook post.

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By Terra Breeden

Glasses of bacon bloody Mary’s and craft beers clanged together in salutations while a disc jockey spun pop hits over a booming sound system. Guests shook their tail feathers on the dance floor and enjoyed a vast buffet of pork belly sliders, veggie platters, and pizza slices. Needless to say, it was a party. But this wasn’t your everyday Heavenly fiesta, this was the 2018 Mountain Travel Symposium, the largest ski business conference in the world and the meeting ground for many of the industry’s top leaders.

This year, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority hosted the Mountain Travel Symposium; a gathering of professionals from ski resorts and mountain towns across the globe. Ski business-people representing more than 35 countries met with vacation home suppliers, buyers and vendors to boost the mountain-travel economy and create lasting connections within the industry. More than 1,000 people attended the event from April 8-14, which was at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel and Heavenly Mountain Resort.

“It’s all the people involved in the mountain and winter agencies from all over the world who sell winter vacations to clients,” LTVA Vice President of Tourism Development Tony Lyle told Lake Tahoe News.

The Mountain Travel Symposium is hosted by a different resort town each year.

To host the event, LTVA successfully placed a bid with a destination marketing organization in 2015. LTVA then partnered with Heavenly, Harrah’s, and Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel to provide the conference center, mountain activities, and accommodations for attendees. LTVA’s goal was to unite the worldwide ski industry and grow the local economy by bringing new businesses and clients to the South Shore.

“We are a tourist destination and LTVA is bringing the mountain business here,” Lyle said. “We did a lot of outreach and this event is good for everybody, from banquet servers to hotel owners.”

Travel conference attendees are treated to skiing and dining at Heavenly. Photo/Terra Breeden

Additionally, LTVA is focused on producing more business on the South Shore by inspiring ski clubs and councils who attend the symposium to plan their annual winter vacations at the ski resorts and hotels in this area. Many of the clients who came to the event were impressed by the transformation of the area since the Great Recession, especially in areas like the Heavenly Village.

“A lot of people have been blown away by the village, the mountain, and the beauty of the lake,” Lyle said. “These people had preconceived notions from 10-15 years ago, but there is new business being booked already during this conference.”

At the weeklong Mountain Travel Symposium, a wide range of networking opportunities, activities, and business presentations were offered each day. Attendees learned how to grow their companies with social media marketing tactics and vacation home rental schemes during the popular breakout sessions on Wednesday and Thursday. And over the weekend, attendees met with other like-minded professionals to discuss business strategies and network in speed-dating-style, one-on-one meetings and group assemblies.

“This is a great place to meet with current clients and develop new relationships because the sharing of information and networking is critically important. Everybody is an expert here when it comes to the ski and snowboard industry. It is a great venue and event,” Janet Janssen, director of property management at Travel Guard International in Stevens Point, Wis., told Lake Tahoe News.

Janssen, who has been attending the Mountain Travel Symposium for eight years, said that the symposium has been growing in popularity with more international companies joining this conference than in earlier years. Attendees wore name tags emblazoned with their home countries and hailed from places such as Spain, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Belgium.

“The international companies bring a new perspective. Their mountains and customers are different from the U.S.,” Janssen said. “Everyone gains a better insight on how to run their business. They learn about marketing and gain more knowledge about the industry as a whole.”

Although most of the conference days were spent within the confines of Harrah’s, this rowdy bunch of professional outdoor enthusiasts were more likely to form meaningful business relationships in skis and snow boots than they were in suits and heels. Heavenly was awash in ski-industry professionals conducting impromptu meetings on the chairlifts before hitting the slopes with their newfound business partners.

Skiing conditions were warm and sunny during the event and Heavenly was relatively quiet; winding down during the last couple weeks of operation. The Mountain Travel Symposium guests virtually had the mountain to themselves. Multiple languages and accents could be heard as symposium attendees skied together in small groups and explored the mountain.

“This place is magical. I can’t believe how great the spring skiing is,” Herman Buchan, symposium attendee and manager of Hotel Castor, a luxury resort in Champoluc, Italy, said.

Next year, the Mountain Travel Symposium is scheduled in Whistler, British Columbia. The event returns to the Lake Tahoe area in 2020 and will be at Squaw Valley.

By Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazette-Journal

It’s almost time for the Forest Service to make a recommendation on a proposal to offer oil and gas leases in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains.

But first the agency is giving the public another chance to weigh in.

“We want to make sure if there is any new information out there we didn’t receive the first go around we get it and we consider it like we are supposed to,” said Joshua Nicholes, acting district ranger for the Mountain City, Ruby Mountains, Jarbidge Ranger District of the Humboldt Toiyabe National Forest.

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By Natalie Bruzda, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevada and California are “brothers and sisters in more ways than other states can say,” and the Route 91 shooting cemented that notion even further, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Friday during a gun policy discussion at UNLV.

“Thirty-three of the 58 people who died on Oct. 1 were from California, and I suspect many of the others were transplants from California,” Becerra said. “What we do impacts you and what you do impacts us. We have every reason to try to work together.”

Becerra spoke Friday during the first in what will be a yearlong series of discussions at UNLV’s Boyd School of Law on solutions for reducing gun violence.

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By Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle

WASHINGTON — Congress and the Trump administration are pushing ahead with a plan to raise a towering symbol of dam-building’s 20th century heyday to meet the water demands of 21st century California — a project backed by San Joaquin Valley growers but opposed by state officials, defenders of a protected river and an American Indian tribe whose sacred sites would be swamped.

The fight is over Shasta Dam, at 602 feet the fourth-tallest dam in California and the cornerstone of the federal Central Valley Project, which provides water to cities and farms throughout the state. One of its biggest customers is the Westlands Water District in the arid western San Joaquin Valley, which distributes water to numerous large farms.

With enthusiastic support from Westlands, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress want to raise the dam 18½ feet to store more water and guard against losing farmland to future droughts. Some farmers in the valley received no water at all from the Central Valley Project for two straight years during the five-year drought that ended with the winter of 2016-17.

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By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times
 
The Trump administration is abandoning a Justice Department threat to crack down on recreational marijuana in states where it is legal, a move that could enable cannabis businesses in California and other states that have legalized pot to operate without fear of federal raids and prosecution.

President Trump personally directed the abrupt retreat, which came at the behest of Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado. White House officials confirmed the policy shift Friday. Trump did not inform Attorney General Jeff Sessions in advance of the change in policy, an almost unheard of undermining of a Cabinet official.

Gardner was incensed in January when the Justice Department announced that it was rescinding an Obama-era policy that directed federal prosecutors not to target marijuana businesses that operate legally under state law. The senator had blocked Justice Department nominees in retaliation.

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By Wade Tyler Millward, Las Vegas Review-Journal

An agreement between Caesars Entertainment and a Northern California tribe will bring a Harrah’s casino to tribal land southeast of Sacramento.

The $168 million project will be developed, owned and operated by the Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians. Caesars will license the Harrah’s name to the tribe and manage and maintain the 71,000-square-foot property once the casino is operational.

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The Nevada Division of State Lands is providing approximately $350,000 to fund various environmental preservation projects in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

The funding is generated through Nevada Lake Tahoe license plate sales and annual renewal fees.

Programs to be funded include:

·      Aquatic invasive species surveillance monitoring, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency

·      Water Trail educational wayfinding interpretive signage, Tahoe Resource Conservation District

·      Operational remote sensing to support Lake Tahoe nearshore monitoring, Desert Research Institute

·      Aquatic invasive plant control at Elk Point Marina, Tahoe Resource Conservation District

·      Outreach and education for the Lake Tahoe shoreline plan, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency

·      A sustainable method for the rapid assessment of the extent and causes of metaphyton in Lake Tahoe, UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

Bus service on the South Shore, which has long been inadequate, could get even worse.

Tahoe Transportation District officials are considering cutting service, including the ski shuttles to Heavenly Mountain Resort.

Lack of funding is the main reason for the proposed changes.

The board on April 13 heard various scenarios for future service and the reasons for them. Before any changes are made the public will be asked to get more involved. Future meetings will be conducted to gather input.

Federal grants are going away, and then there is the issue of an aging fleet. Added to that is the difficulty TTD has had in retaining drivers. In part this has to do with wages as well as people having a hard time finding housing. Overtime costs are another problem.

While money is an issue, on the table is a proposal for a 20 percent pay hike for drivers. This is largely an attempt to lure people here. Without drivers, it doesn’t matter how many state-of-the-art buses come on line or how many routes are proposed.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report