A meadow restoration and road rehabilitation project will close the first 1.5-mile segment of North Canyon Road at Spooner Lake State Park to recreational traffic.
The road closure will affect access to the Flume Trail via North Canyon Road and the Marlette Lake Trail June 1-July 12, Mondays through Thursdays from 7am-5:30pm.
Access to the Spooner Lake Loop Trail will not be affected.
The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit will host the sixth annual Native Species Festival on May 30 from 10am-4pm at the Taylor Creek Visitor Center.
This free family event is a way to spend the day outdoors and learn about native species of the Lake Tahoe Basin.
Activities include guided walks led by field professionals to learn about local trees and wildlife, a free training on how to identify and remove invasive plants sponsored by the League to Save Lake Tahoe and a guided nature walk for dog owners hosted by the Lake Tahoe Humane Society. Educational booths from various public and nonprofit agencies will feature information on the American black bear, native birds, the American beaver, Tahoe yellow cress and more. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will return this year with the inflatable fish tent and the large fish tank, which holds native Lahontan cutthroat trout.
Hot dogs, snacks, drinks and ice cream will be available for purchase. The local band, Fugitive Roots, will provide live music.
For more information, contact Jean Norman at 530.543.2694 or go online.
South Lake Tahoe Moose Lodge No. 1632, with Sierra-at-Tahoe, Harrah’s and Harveys are sponsoring the 10th annual Longest Day of Golf on June 18.
Tahoe Paradise Golf Course is donating its course for the entire day. Golfers will start at sunup and play as many holes as they can before sundown.
Last year more than $12,000 was raised for the South Lake Tahoe Cancer League. The golfers will be taking pledges on a per hole basis or a flat dollar donation amount. This year’s goals are to play more than 130 holes and raise over $12,000.
To make a pledge, call the Moose Lodge at 530.541.1632; to make a donation via credit/debit card, call the Cancer League 530.573.1703.
All things beach related is the theme of the Zephyr Cove Tennis Club’s 2015 inaugural Hump Day Mixer on June 10. This means dressing in beach or summer attire.
Mixers include a barbecue, raffle prizes, and an adult doubles round robin for all ability levels. Play starts at 5:30pm.
The Hump Day Mixers are $10 for club members, $15 for non-members, and $5 for spectators (meal only). Membership is $80 per year. To join, go online or do so the night of the event.
Participants of Hump Day events are encouraged to bring a side dish or dessert, as well as beverage of choice that does not come in a glass container. No advance sign-up is required.
Zephyr Cove Tennis Club is on Warrior Way off Highway 50 in Zephyr Cove.
By Rob Kuznia, Washington Post
HERMOSA BEACH — Christopher Knight makes no apologies: He likes a green lawn. But the actor best known for playing middle son Peter on “The Brady Bunch” also wants to do his part to conserve water.
The solution? Fake grass.
“It feels totally different,” Knight, 57, marveled one day last week, stepping barefoot onto a deceptively lifelike expanse of newly installed plastic turf. “Frankly, I’m not really sure why more people haven’t started doing it.”
After four blistering years of drought in California, more people are doing it. The fake grass business is booming, much to the chagrin of some environmentalists and live-grass purists.
Comprehensive numbers are hard to come by, but makers and installers of synthetic turf say they are experiencing an unprecedented spike in residential business in California. From middle-class families who don’t want to forfeit the patch-of-green part of the American dream to megawatt celebrities who are mortified by TV coverage of their sprawling water-hog lawns, homeowners across the Golden State are ripping up sod and replacing it with plastic.
Circe Bailey with her massive mackinaw and Andrew Lubrano, the boat’s captain. Photo/Provided
A fisher girl did on her first outing what some veterans have never done – catch a mackinaw weighing more than 15 pounds.
“I think she wanted to cry she was so exhausted,” Capt. Andrew Lubrano of Nor-Cal Charters told Lake Tahoe News.
Seven-year-old Circe Bailey had a single minnow on the other end of her line that was about 150 feet down in 300 feet of water when the fish bit on May 24.
The Carson City youngster was fishing for the first time with her dad, brother and sister. The excursion started at 6am. They were close to Ski Run Marina when the fish took hold.
Circe said the captain was giving her direction and her sister helped a bit with reeling it in. It took about two hours to land it.
There was nothing easy about getting that fish to cooperate. Just when it was near the surface Lubrano would try to net it. But this fish wasn’t going to come aboard that easy. It dove and Circe kept hanging on.
“(It’s) one of the nicest fish I have seen working at Nor-Cal Charters,” Lubrano said. “There are fishing guides who have been on the lake for 20 years and have never caught a fish that good.”
About two hours after catching it, it was weighed – 15.1 pounds. Lubrano said fish lose about 10 percent of their muscle mass when they get in the boat, so the fish was closer to 17 pounds.
Usually the mackinaw pulled from Lake Tahoe are in the 3- to 5-pound category.
Fish tacos have been served now multiple nights in the Bailey household. Circe said they taste great.
— Kathryn Reed
By Kyle Stock, BloombergBusiness
Polaris Industries has built an empire (and an impressive stock market run) on cool and quirky machines—motorcycles, snowmobiles, and all-terrain vehicles. Its newest toy is particularly strange: the snow bike.
Picture a dirt bike with a ski in the place of a front wheel and a snowmobile tread instead of a rear wheel. A small crew of people in northwern Idaho has been perfecting the weird winter whip, and Polaris just bought their business, Timbersled. Essentially, Timbersled sells kits that converts the lower half of a traditional dirt bike into something that canporpoise through deep powder. Its bestseller, the “Mountain Horse,” costs about $5,300.
By Sarah Barker, Outside
If you’re planning for a race with elevation gains, but live at sea level, a treadmill is a great way to simulate that. Photo: webphotographeer/iStock
Seventy and sunny, the snow is finally gone—buh-bye treadmill, right? Not so fast, Bambi. The fast tread to nowhere still has a place in your training schedule. Yes, get out there and enjoy the unpredictable outdoors, but once a week—maybe once every two weeks—let your inner control freak take over and hit the treadmill. Bonus: you’ll probably have the gym to yourself.
Elite runner turned coach, Antonio Vega, did the majority of his Minnesota winter training on the treadmill, but doesn’t completely ditch the treadmill in nice weather. (How elite? He ran a 2:13 at the 2010 Boston Marathon and won the 2010 U.S. Half Marathon Championship.) Part of the raison d’être for the treadmill is that it controls every detail — pace, temperature, incline, precipitation, footing—so it allows you to isolate and work on one specific aspect of your next race.
AJ gets a drink from what appears to be a new lake because of all of the runoff. Photos/Kathryn Reed
By Kathryn Reed
Susie and Heather were the only ones we were supposed to meet along the way. However, there is so much snowmelt that pools of water look like new lakes. This is not an exaggeration.
Water was everywhere. I expected the Glen Alpine Springs area to be a bit flooded, but it wasn’t bad. It was as we climbed that we came across these foreign water bodies.
Looming walls of granite appear to be weeping as water seems to stain the light gray rock.
Waterfalls not ordinarily running in the summer look like a spigot has been turned on.
Granite encapsulates the dark blue water of Lake Aloha.
It’s an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand there is so much water that it would be hard to know California is in year four of a major drought. On the other hand it was mid-May and runoff should not be so substantive; the moisture should still be in the form of snow. Thus, a clear sign this was no ordinary winter in regards to snowfall or spring because the warm weather has melted the little that did fall.
In several places it’s necessary to walk across logs or hop from rock to rock to cross the running water.
U.S. Forest Service crews still need to clear a few blow downs.
It was the second Monday of May that Donna and I made the 12-mile round-trip trek to Lake Aloha. This picturesque lake in Desolation Wilderness should have tons of snow on the trail. Not so. The couple snowfields we traversed across were no big deal.
Really, we shouldn’t have been able to be there. It’s too early in the season to be on this route without snowshoes. Actually, it’s doubtful I would be on it in the winter because Fallen Leaf Lake Road is usually closed and the route has no markers for winter recreationists.
Just below Lake Aloha are flat “lunch” rocks that overlook Heather Lake.
But I learned this is the time to make this ascent. One of the fabulous things about this hike in the early season is the lack of people on the trail. With this being one of the portals to Mount Tallac, there is often a bevy of foot traffic that can make it seem like anything but a wilderness area.
A few backpackers were coming and going. On this particularly windy day I was glad it was a day trip for us. My lone backpacking trip was to Lake Aloha and it was a miserable windy experience.
It was too windy and cold to spend much time at this lake that looks like it is from another world. We were reminded of the time of year by the snow lining the shore on the other side of the lake that then extends to peaks that seem to scratch the sky. Mount Pierce and Pyramid Peak are the most visible from this vantage point.
People are known to swim to the islands of Heather Lake on warm summer days.
This granite basin has only a few trees protruding from the edges of the water. Rock is the dominant feature – including the islands.
I had forgotten how much granite there is on this trek – much more rock than dirt. So much that I was at the vet the next day. I had booties for my former dog for the overnighter. I was a bad mommy this time and AJ’s pads suffered because of it. One paw had to be bandaged.
Starting out at the trailhead we were at 6,560 feet. Lake Aloha is at 8,170 feet.
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Getting there:
From South Lake Tahoe go north on Highway 89. Turn left on Fallen Leaf Lake. Wind around and park at the trailhead. This is the Glen Alpine Trailhead.
Once on the trail, follow signs for Susie Lake and Lake Aloha.
Lake Tahoe Community College’s student-led business club, the Future Business Leaders of Tahoe, is hosting the second annual LTCC Community Games on May 30.
This event-filled day will include a table tennis competition, kickball tournaments, dodgeball tournaments, a silent auction, raffle, food and drink, and live music.
The purpose of the LTCC Community Games is to raise money for student scholarships, and to build a stronger bond between the college and the South Shore community.
The Community Games begins with a double-elimination, individual player table tennis tournament from 10am-noon; kickball tournament is from noon-4pm, and dodgeball from 1-4pm.
For more information about the LTCC Community Games, to register, or purchase raffle tickets email fblt.ltcc@gmail.com. The event is from 9am-4pm.