Tahoe Rim Trail Association’s 4th annual Outdoor Leadership and Guide Training will be at Granlibakken Lodge and Conference Center in Tahoe City May 18-20.

This training is no longer just for guides. Participants will discover sessions that will increase their confidence and competence in the outdoors.

Regional professionals, along with experienced Tahoe Rim Trail guides will lead workshops in Outdoor Leadership, Risk Management, Trip Planning, Leave No Trace and more. The weekend offers opportunities to network with professional and volunteer guides, as well as participants who share in common pursuits and passions. Participants pay a fee of $250 which includes two nights of lodging, all meals, three days of training, parking, training materials, and conference center facilities. However, there are many other price packages available.

For more information and registration materials, go online or contact Jaime Souza at (775) 298.0231 or jaimes@tahoerimtrail.org.

By Kathryn Reed

While the word “park” is in its name, this is not the four-letter word most would use for the stretch of land from Lake Tahoe Vacation Resort to Holiday Inn Express. “Ugly” is what it is.

Linear Park is going to get a complete makeover, with completion likely in 2013. It’s possible a final design plan will be in place in March.

Right now dirt, dead plants and non-working lights line the sides of the bike-pedestrian path that parallels Highway 50 and the gated Tahoe Meadows area.

The dirt and trail along Highway 50 known as Linear Park is about to be upgraded. Photo/LTN

It is the residents of Tahoe Meadows who gave the city the land to create this park. The homeowners owned the land into the first travel lane of Highway 50.

But it was the Washoe who first called this area home – long before white people put gates around it to regulate who could access this lakefront property.

Tahoe Meadows was once a frequent fishing area for the Washoe, who spent their summers at Lake Tahoe. There was a pond nearby that was used to store the fish until the tribe needed them for food.

It is because of this history that it was decided by the now defunct city arts council to erect a statue in that location to honor the Washoe Tribe. The statue on the west end of the park was created by Arnold Aragon. It portrays a typical Washoe woman. Though Aragon, who lives in Schurz, Nev., is Crow and Laguna, he is married to a Washoe woman.

After it was erected in 2000, the original pedestal on which the statue sits began to crumble. In stepped the now-defunct Core 24 Charities, of which this reporter was a member. In 2005, a more durable quartzite pedestal was built. Tahoe Sand and Gravel donated materials.

The arts council had intended to place plaques in a semicircle that would have told the story of the Washoe. Money prevented that from happening.

However, after the revamped pedestal was put in, the city paid for a single plaque to be installed.

Core 24 when it disbanded gave the city more than $20,000 to be used exclusively on upgrades to linear park. After all, the group had worked with the city and South Tahoe Public Utility District to establish a 2-inch water hookup near the old Shell station to supply needed irrigation. The group also planted 1,000 daffodil bulbs around the pedestal that to this day bloom each year.

It won’t be until a March City Council meeting that the $20,000 gets placed in the appropriate fund.

At the Feb. 21 City Council meeting the five approved an agreement with Brett Long Landscape Architecture for planning, design and construction support services.

The staff report says, “The preliminary project scope includes improving the existing landscaping, upgrading irrigation and supply, providing bus shelter pads and enclosures, class 1 bicycle trail repair and installing pedestrian lighting.”

Councilman Tom Davis wants better lighting than what is on Ski Run Boulevard so pedestrians don’t go from dark to light to dark. But it is those types of overhead lights that are proposed.

For one, they meet Tahoe Regional Planning Agency guidelines. They are also more compatible when houses are nearby because of spreading less light.

Nancy Kerry, who was acting city manager for the week while Tony O’Rourke was out of town, said the Tahoe Meadows Homeowners Association is willing to discuss the lighting issue.

The entire cost of the project is estimated between $250,000 and $370,000. The higher cost is if the bike path is revamped.

Long hopes the landscaping could be in place this summer. While native plants will be used, it’s likely grass will go in some areas, along with adaptive accent plants.

When the park was first developed in the 1990s the irrigation system was not adequate and the plants died. People have continuously kicked in the low-level light standards. Now it is just rundown.

Long believes improvements can be ongoing after the initial upgrades are made – like signs and benches.

Because of unfriendly winter weather conditions, the Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue Team has been forced to cancel the Great Ski Race that was scheduled for March 6.

Experience the exhilaration of gliding through the forest on cross country ski trails working up a hearty appetite, and then enjoying gourmet grazing right on the trail.

Outdoor enthusiasts and foodies can ski or snowshoe from one food station to the next during the 11th annual Gourmet Ski Tour, a fundraiser for the Tahoe Cross Country Ski Education Association at the Tahoe Cross Country Center on March 11 starting at 1pm.

Dress in your favorite dance costume: this year’s theme is “snow dance” with such costume suggestions as disco, hip hop, or ballet. Winner of the costume contest wins a Tahoe XC ski season pass.

Beginners may rent skis or snowshoes at the Tahoe Cross Country Center and move around at their leisure tasting everything from soup to nuts. The afternoon ends with margaritas and live music by The Drunken Neighbors from 2:30-5pm.

Tickets are $32 for adults (includes a half-day trail pass), $27 for juniors ages 13-17, children 12 and under can feast on complimentary hot dogs. A limited number of tickets are available. Call (530) 583.5475 or go online for tickets.

By USSA

BANSKO, Bulgaria — Lindsey Vonn of Vail made up an astounding 0.61 deficit on the bottom half of a bumpy Bansko speed track to notch a historic 18th career super G win Sunday and pass Austrian Renate Goetschl in the women’s Audi FIS Alpine World Cup tour record books.

The victory, her 10th this season, rocketed Vonn to a 94 point discipline lead going into the season’s last race at World Cup Finals and boosted her overall World Cup lead total to 528 with nine races left on the calendar.

Tina Weirather of Lichtenstein was second, a mere 0.05 behind Vonn.

Julia Mancuso of Squaw Valley was eighth, Leanne Smith of North Conway, N.H., 18th, Laurenne Ross of Bend, Ore., 24th and Stacey Cook of Mammoth Mountain 29th.

Vonn, Mancuso and Smith have qualified in super G for for the March 11-18 World Cup Finals in Schladming, Austria.

BY USSA

CRANS MONTANA, Switzerland — Fighting through incredibly soft snow conditions, Ted Ligety of Park City was slowed to ninth place in the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup giant slalom at Crans Montana won by Italian Massimiliano Blardone on Sunday.

As the course deteriorated under warm temperatures, the first run leaders struggled to maintain speed in the final run. After leading the giant slalom standings for the first half of the season, Ligety is now 132 points behind Austrian Marcel Hirscher with two giant slalom races left in the season. Hirscher, who was second in the race, also leads the World Cup overall standings by 92 points.

Tommy Ford of Bend, Ore., was 19th and Tim Jitloff of Reno 22nd.

Head coach Sasha Rearick said, “I am stoked with the skiing of Tommy Ford. Today he went out and free skied a lot and found some better movement for his skis, but on the bottom he skied a too-aggressive line and it was just too costly for both him and Tim [Jitloff], which is a bummer. Qualifying for World Cup Finals for Tommy and Tim is going to come down to the last race. There’s about seven guys between 21 and 29 that could make top 25.”

By Kathryn Reed

Snowshoe events in February at Lake Tahoe are a no-brainer. Except for this year.

Fresh Tracks – the Eric Nageotte Memorial 5K Snowshoe Race could actually be a running event. That would seem appropriate considering the Tahoe Mountain Milers puts on the annual fundraiser. Instead, the race part of today’s event has been canceled because Camp Richardson has no snow to groom trails.

“A few years ago we had a similar situation and went ahead and snowshoed through mud. It was horrible and I didn’t want to do it again,” Carol Nageotte said. “People can go out and play and do their own course, in their own groups … run around wherever snow is.”

Eric Nageotte graduated from South Tahoe High School in 2004. Photos/Provided

This event is in its 13th year. When Eric Nageotte died in September 2004 the event was renamed to honor him and raise money for a scholarhip fund for members of the Heavenly Ski Foundation freestyle team.

Nageotte was an aspiring freestyle skier with dreams of making the U.S. Ski Team. His two buddies have – Sho Kashima and Jay Panther.

“I feel like we’re living vicariously through Jay and Sho. It makes us proud,” Nageotte said. “It’s not hard to watch them. It gives us joy to see them do so well.”

(Kashima, though, is sidelined having had knee surgery last week on the knee he didn’t hurt a year ago. And Panther is out recovering from a concussion.)

Eric Nageotte was training in New Zealand when the fatal ski accident occurred. The trip was his present after graduating the previous June from South Tahoe High School.

At his memorial his four parents – Ron and Carol Nageotte, and Toni and John Lowe – started the memorial scholarship fund as a way for people to make donations instead of buying flowers for the funeral service.

The snowshoe race is now the main fundraiser for the scholarship that helps up and coming skiers train. (Carol and Ron Nageotte are longtime members of the running club.) Eric participated in a few of the Tahoe Mountain Miler events, but it was bouncing through a field of moguls where he felt most at home.

Eric Nageotte had dreams of being on the U.S. Ski Team.

Much of the money raised goes for the young skiers’ gymnastics training.

“It’s pretty expensive to have a kid on the team,” Ron Nageotte said.

Carol Nageotte added, “We’re supporting the kids whether they knew Eric or not. It’s a sport Eric loved. It’s one way to give back to the community.”

As for the event today, Camp Rich has donated the food. Mountain Miler volunteers will be barbecuing sausages and hot dogs, plus there will be vegetarian chili, starting about noon. That’s all free for anyone who shows up to play. Sweat shirts are for sale. Donations to the scholarship fund are welcome.

For more information, go online.

By Emerson Marcus, Reno Gazette-Journal

The text on many of the blue and gray, Nevada-shaped roadside markers that note historically significant events and locations will be updated in the coming months and years to fix errors and terminology that could be read as insensitive or even racist, Nevada State Historic Preservation Officer Ron James said.

Phrases like “Chinese hoards stormed” Tuscarora and “Before the coming of the white man, roving Washoe and Paiute bands inhabited the Truckee Meadows” were a couple of examples, James said. Date inaccuracies, physical wear, spelling and grammatical errors will also be corrected.

“Almost all of them need to be updated for some reason,” said James, who estimated the price of each new marker at $1,000. “We also grade the markers. So, as funding becomes available, we’ll address the ones that need to be addressed the soonest.”

The Nevada Department of Transportation will fund much of the effort with about $88,000 this year to help with maintenance and replacement of damaged markers, NDOT public information officer Meg Ragonese said. After a marker is determined to be damaged or stolen, it will be replaced with a new marker containing updated text, James said.

Most of the markers were written by members of the Nevada Historical Society in the 1960s and 1970s after the National Historical Preservation Act of 1966.

Read the whole story

By Josh Dean, Men’s Journal

When the Winter X Games hit Aspen in January, the world’s snowboarding greats were all present, throwing double corks over the halfpipe. But one was notably absent: Jeremy Jones. The world’s preeminent free­rider was busy prepping for his upcoming expedition to the glaciers of Alaska, where he’ll strap a tent to his back and camp out between blizzards, waiting for the weather to ease so he can locate, climb, and then snowboard down chutes and couloirs so hairy that he is one of the few humans alive who would attempt them.

For the past three years, the eight-time Big Mountain Rider of the Year has dedicated himself to hiking and climbing up mountains so that he can snowboard down them. His primary tool for this is a splitboard, a snowboard that breaks in two to become skis. Jones’ enthusiasm for the splitboard has popularized the genre, and in 2009 he founded a company that manufactures them. His ultimate goal is to get young boarders to follow him out of bounds.

Jones’ transition to a purer, more old-school brand of adventure is not that surprising given his background. Now 36, the Truckee resident learned to snowboard before parks and pipes were ubiquitous.

“I would have loved them, but growing up, the parks just weren’t there,” says Jones. “So to me, it’s always been about riding the whole mountain, finding the stashes and the top-to-bottom line that connects them all.”

From his onscreen introduction in the 1997 film Totally Board 6 — he dropped into a near vertical Alaskan face, triggered, and then disappeared into an avalanche, only to reappear from the tidal wave of white at the last minute and ride to safety — the Vermont-raised resident of Lake Tahoe has spent the better part of two decades seeking out and riding some of the most difficult lines on Earth.

As Travis Rice, the world’s best all-around snowboarder, once said, “Jeremy is breaking down the boundaries of ‘I can’t.’”

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By Gus Thomson, Auburn Journal

Uncertainty gave way to celebration Tuesday as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and California State Parks marked the signing of a 25-year partnership pact to maintain operations in the 30,000-acre Auburn State Recreation Area.

The long-term agreement, which also covers more than 20,000 acres in the Folsom State Recreation Area, means State Parks will continue to manage law enforcement and visitor services in the two areas.

The Bureau of Reclamation hammered out an agreement with State Parks that requires all revenue generated by recreation and other operations to be applied directly to the management of the two recreations areas.

In turn, the bureau will provide federal appropriations “as available” for half of any operational deficit up to a ceiling of $2.5 million annually.

In a sign of goodwill, the state and federal agencies are pledging to continue to work together to minimize or eliminate deficits through continuous collaboration and efficient business planning.

The collaboration was forced by a groundswell of local concern over possible Bureau of Reclamation cutbacks that would have forced closure of access roads and the potential elimination of a State Parks presence in the Auburn State Recreation Area because of lack of funding.

Read the whole story