Barton Foundation’s annual Tiki Tee Off Golf Tournament and Lei Up Luau is June 26.
All proceeds benefit the Barton Foundation’s Community Health Endowment. Prices vary.
The event is at Lake Tahoe Golf Course in Meyers.
The tournament includes course contests and on-hole libations, with a pig roast, Hawaiian buffet, tiki drinks, and raffle prizes at the end.
To reserve a spot, call 530.543.5614 or find more info online.
The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit will begin the Carnelian Hazardous Fuels Reduction and Healthy Forest Restoration Project next week.
The project will thin trees and brush on National Forest lands on the North Shore to reduce the risk of severe wildfire, improve forest health, and provide defensible space to neighboring communities.
The project area includes approximately 3,297 acres adjacent to Kings Beach, Tahoe Vista, Carnelian Bay, Cedar Flat, Lake Forest and Tahoe City.
Thinning methods include hand thinning, which is done by crews with chain saws and involves piling the material for burning at a later time; cut-to-length thinning, which cuts the tree down, cuts the tree into sections in the cutting area and then removes the tree and as much material as possible; and whole tree removal, in which the whole tree is cut and moved to the landing for processing.
The first units scheduled for treatment are located on the east side of Brockway Summit near Kings Beach, north of Speckled Avenue. Approximately 310 acres will be thinned in these areas using CTL equipment.
Work may take approximately three months to complete. Work will not occur on Memorial Day Weekend.
Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association members will begin construction on the Lower Corral Trail Enhancement Project on May 5.
This project will implement the design package put together by the Hilride Progression Development group under contract with the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit.
This South Lake Tahoe trail will be reworked to include built features for mountain bikes including high wall berms, rock jumps, tabletop jumps and log rides. All features are designed to be enjoyable and challenging for all abilities, with the intent of developing user skill and progression.
Once completed, Corral Trail will be a model project for purpose built mountain bike features on legal trails in a National Forest. Corral Trail will remain open to all current users, including motorcycles, mountain bikers and hikers.
TAMBA has raised more than $25,000 in the last year to put in the features along more than 1 mile of trail.
Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship, nonprofit trail organization like TAMBA, has the personnel, equipment and experience to do the bulk of the work. Oversight will be provided by the USFS staff. Construction is expected to take up to four weeks, working Monday-Thursday. It is advised that users take alternate routes around Lower Corral.
TAMBA and SBTS will have a a volunteer workday from 9am to 4pm on May 17, followed by a get together that evening at Divided Sky in Meyers and a guided mountain bike ride the following day.
For more information about the Corral Trail project or the upcoming volunteer opportunities, go online.
By Jessie Marchesseau
Extreme is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of motor scooters. However, this weekend’s 320-mile Lake Tahoe T.T. Motor-Scooter Endurance Race may just change your opinion of scooting.
Riders will set out from Motel 6 in South Lake Tahoe at 7:30am May 4 traveling east to Carson City, then through Reno, Truckee, Auburn, Placerville, back to South Lake, then around the lake through Tahoe City and Incline Village, ending once again at the Motel 6. According to Mapquest.com, the entire route should take more than seven hours in a car.
But these are not cars, they are scooters. They range from 49cc to 650cc. These machines won’t be doing 75 up a mountain pass. Alan Spears, president-CEO of Motor-Scooter International Land-Speed Federation, said most of them will only do 60 to 65 mph on a good day.
Participant Raven Fischer rides a 1981 Vespa that she said is “comfortable going 45 miles per hour.” Fischer is expecting to ride her scooter for at least nine hours straight on race day.
The term “race” is somewhat of a misnomer for an event that is really more of a rally. Riders will have designated checkpoints along the route, and breaking the law in any way, including speeding, is grounds for instant disqualification.
Participant Linda Hurley considers herself a very conservative rider; she does not break any traffic laws and hardly ever splits lanes. She also has one of the smallest engines in her class. However, she has won three MSILSF scooter endurance races and placed second in another. Her advantage, she said, comes from planning and sheer endurance.
The course.
“I definitely like the preparation and studying the route and trying to figure out what my competitive edge would be,” she said.
Hurley has added an auxiliary fuel tank to her scooter for this race. She estimates the entire route will take around 8.5 gallons of gas. The extra 5-gallon tank means she will likely not have to make any fuel stops all day. This four to six minute time saver could mean the difference between first and second place.
Fischer, on the other hand, is not concerned about what place she finishes. As the rider of one of very few vintage scooters in the field, she expects to be in the back of the pack, and is just fine with that. Fischer is a newcomer to the MSILSF circuit looking for a fun ride and the opportunity to connect with other riders who share her love of scooters.
“You make your own fun in this world,” she told Lake Tahoe News. “That’s why I like scooterists; they make their own fun.”
Having recently completely rebuilt her Vespa by herself, Fischer, who is not a mechanic and did the work entirely from a handbook and YouTube videos, is hoping her handiwork holds up to the stress of an endurance race. She acknowledges that she may have to make adjustments during the race and could even encounter mechanical problems. But for her, that is part of the excitement.
All competitors will race at the same time, but the field is divided into four classes based on engine size, plus a sidecar division. Spears, who raced sidecar motorcycles professionally for Harley-Davidson in the late 1970s, will be participating in the sidecar class.
After taking a break from motorcycle racing, Spears switched to scooters for medical reasons. He wanted to give scooterists an opportunity to race, too, and founded MSILSF in 2010. The organization had its first land-speed trials in late 2010 and its first endurance race in 2011. The Lake Tahoe T.T. will be the sixth event hosted by MSILSF and one of the most challenging.
There will be a $500 purse for the first place rider, but for most it’s not about the money. They are in it for fun, for a challenge, to enjoy the open road and to meet other riders. And for Spears, to bring a little recognition to scooting.
“Because someday we’ll all be riding them because of gas,” he told Lake Tahoe News.
Lake Tahoe Community College and Tahoe Center for Orthopedics are putting on weeklong summer sports camps that focus on improving kids’ health, wellness, and athletic performance.
Kids ages 7-13 will be taught proper exercise techniques, team-building, sports-specific techniques, and how to make healthy nutritional choices.
Session 1: June 23-27, 9am-4pm
Session 2: July 7-11, 9am-4pm
Session 3: Aug. 11-15, 9am-4pm.
Early bird price is $160 per session ($185 per session after June 2).
To register, go here and click on “Register for Community Education” or call 530.541.4660, ext. 717.
Tour of Carson City Bike Ride is May 4 at 9am.
The 27-mile loop goes around Carson City. It will begin and end at Bike Habitat, which is celebrating its seventh anniversary.
Lunch will follow the ride.
The event is free. However, donations and membership are encouraged to support Muscle Powered of Carson City. All donations go to Muscle Powered.
For more info, call 775.267.5053.
By Dana M. Nichols, Stockton Record
SAN ANDREAS — The yellow-legged frog, a native of the High Sierra, will soon be listed as an endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday.
The service also said that it will soon list the Yosemite toad as threatened with extinction.
The listings will mean new legal protections for two species of yellow-legged frog and for the toad, which live at high altitudes primarily on federal forest or national park lands.
The listings was published Tuesday in the Federal Register on Tuesday and will become final on June 30. The action caps almost a decade and a half of legal and political conflict over the amphibians.
By Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times
Exercise makes us tired. A new study helps to elucidate why and also suggests that while it is possible to push through fatigue to reach new levels of physical performance, it is not necessarily wise.
On the surface, exercise-related fatigue seems simple and easy to understand. We exert ourselves and, eventually, grow weary, with leaden, sore muscles, at which point most of us slow or stop exercising. Rarely, if ever, do we push on to the point of total physical collapse.
But scientists have long been puzzled about just how muscles know that they’re about to run out of steam and need to convey that message to the brain, which has the job of actually telling the body that now would be a good time to drop off the pace and seek out a bench.
So, a few years ago, scientists at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City began studying nerve cells isolated from mouse muscle tissue. Other research had established that contracting muscles release a number of substances, including lactate, certain acids and adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, a chemical involved in the creation of energy. The levels of each of those substances were shown to rise substantially when muscles were working hard.
The annual seasonal dog closure at the Upper Truckee Marsh begins May 1.
It will reopen Aug. 1, at which time dogs are allowed on leash.
The purpose of the California Tahoe Conservancy closure of this South Shore area is to keep dogs out of breeding habitat for special, threatened and endangered species such as yellow headed blackbirds.
The El Dorado County sheriff’s deputies enforce the seasonal dog prohibition and CTC staff monitors for compliance.
For more info, call Nick Meyer at 530.543.6073.
Zephyr Cove Tennis Club’s season kickoff is May 24 starting at noon.
All levels are welcome to play in the doubles tennis mixer.
Cost is $10 per person or free to 2014 members. Membership is $80 per person or $140 for two years. Membership payment via the website will be available soon, or it may be done in person.
The kickoff party will include tennis, hamburgers and hot dogs. Participants are encouraged to bring drinks (no glass), side dish or dessert.
For more info, email zctennisclub@gmail.com.