By Cameron Best, ABC News

Former Reno resident Greg LeMond is an innovator and businessman who just happened to win the world’s most famous bike race — three times.

LeMond won the Tour de France in 1986, 1989 and 1990 riding carbon fiber bikes, and pioneered the use of the strong, lightweight material in cycling.

His latest venture with Victoria’s Deakin University will develop new ways to dramatically cut the cost of carbon fiber production for a wide range of uses.

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The Lake Tahoe Bicycle Coalition has produced a new Tahoe Bike Map, which will be available for free at visitor centers and bike shops.

The paper map, which was designed for the Bike Coalition by Truckee-based SDBX Studios, has been completely overhauled and features the latest Tahoe bike trails.

It depicts Tahoe’s South Shore on one side and the North Shore and Truckee on the other, with community insets to provide detail for neighborhood streets and trails. Here is a link to the map.

Recreation facilities in the Loon Lake area are going to be improved this summer.

The projects will include improvements to trails between Loon Lake, Buck Island Lake and Rubicon Reservoir, replacing toilets at Pleasant Campground with new composting toilets, and repair of the Loon Lake Boat Ramp.

Sacramento Municipal Utility District in coordination with the Eldorado National Forest is doing the work.

Helicopters midweek will transport materials to remote work locations and four California Conservation Corps crews will be performing trail work.

Public access will be restricted at times.

Pleasant Campground will be closed July 5 through Labor Day. Trail repairs will occur through Oct. 31, but trails will remain open to public use during this time. There may be some minor delays associated with trail use during this time, and visitors are asked to use these trails with caution. The Loon Lake Boat Ramp will be closed after Labor Day weekend to complete repairs to the damaged lower portion of the ramp. Loon Lake reservoir levels will also be drawn down to facilitate the repair.

Other facilities in the area, including Loon Lake Campground, Loon Lake Chalet, Northshore Campground, and the Rubicon Trail will remain open during construction. Visitors to these sites midweek should expect to experience some construction-related noise during the summer season.

Updates will be available by calling 530.644.2349.

A wolf in Lassen County caught on camera on June 30. Photo/CDFW

California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists have captured and fitted a tracking collar to a female gray wolf in Lassen County, and confirmed that the wolf and her mate have produced at least three pups this year.

During summer and fall 2016, remote trail cameras captured images of two wolves traveling together in Lassen County. While the female’s origins remain unknown, genetic samples obtained from scat indicated the male wolf originated from Oregon’s Rogue Pack. The famous wolf OR7 is the Rogue Pack’s breeding male.

In early May, biologists from the U.S. Forest Service found evidence of recent wolf presence in the Lassen National Forest. CDFW biologists began surveying the area.

On June 30, after 12 days of trapping attempts, the 75-pound adult female gray wolf was captured. After a thorough exam by the biologists and a wildlife veterinarian – including the collection of genetic and other biological samples – the wolf was collared and released.

The following day, July 1, CDFW biologists returned to the field for a routine follow-up check on the female. They encountered tracks of what appeared to be wolf pups, and then found that a nearby trail camera operated by USFS had captured photos of the female with three pups. The pups were gray in color and were photographed playing in front of the camera.

These wolves, named the Lassen Pack by the USFS employee who first detected their location, are the second pack of gray wolves known in California since their extirpation in the 1920s. The first confirmed breeding pair in California produced five pups in eastern Siskiyou County in 2015, and are known as the Shasta Pack. The current status of the Shasta Pack is unknown, although one of the 2015 pups was detected in northwestern Nevada in November 2016.

Gray wolves are currently state and federally listed as endangered.

By Brad Stulberg, Outside

We all want to have long and healthy relationships with our athletic pursuits, so we take care of our bodies through proper training, sleep, nutrition, and mobility. And while that’s all important—vital, even—few of us pay as much attention to how we nurture our minds.

For example, how do we sustain passion for a sport over the course of a lifetime? How do we keep a healthy perspective on competition? How do we bounce back when we fail to achieve our goals, and at the same time, prevent ourselves from becoming addicted to success and results?

The key, psychologists say, may lie in the difference between two mindsets: harmonious passion and obsessive passion. In harmonious passion, you become hooked on an activity—music, art, writing, sport—because of how it makes you feel; you are driven from within and want to get better for the sake of personal improvement and fulfillment. With obsessive passion, externals like achievement, results, rewards, and recognition become more important.

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By Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times
 
Long walks can improve moods and reduce anxiety, but the benefits may be greatest if the walks take place outdoors rather than in a gym, according to a study by researchers in Austria. And while the Alps may be a particularly fine place to hike, a vigorous walk in the woods or paths near home may provide the mental boost we need to keep us moving.

Many different aspects of exercise are thought to affect how much we like working out. But in general, most experts agree that a workout’s intensity and its duration have the greatest influence on our feelings about it.

Researchers wondered whether long, relatively gentle walks would make people happy and, if so, whether some types of walks would be more pleasurable than others.

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Dog hiking on the Whites Creek and Thomas Creek trails on the Carson Ranger District must be leashed at the trailheads and within one mile of the trailheads.

There have been a number of incidents where off-leash dogs have harassed herds of sheep being used by the district to reduce hazardous fuels in the area.

The U.S. Forest Service have released sheep on the Arrowhawk project area to reduce hazardous fuels by removing cheatgrass and other non-native vegetation from forest lands. The unit being grazed is more than 1,000 acres of land located approximately 10 miles southwest of Reno and just west of the Arrowcreek residential area urban interface.

For more information, contact Anna Belle Monti at 775.884.8103.

The start of another glorious day at Lake Tahoe. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

It’s possible to enjoy Lake Tahoe without tourists on a holiday, but it will cost you.

The cost is losing sleep.

Getting up to the see the sunrise at Emerald Bay on the Fourth of July provided a natural explosion of color that no fireworks show could ever come close to duplicating.

Eagle Falls splashes down to Emerald Bay. Photo/Kathryn Reed

The bay was glass; it would have been perfect for water skiing if there weren’t the 5 mph no wake zone. A sailboat appeared to have been moored overnight just off Fannette Island. Plenty of vessels were at the boat-in campground.

A handful of other sunrise seekers were scattered about the rocks above the bay and at Eagle Falls. Most with cameras, others capturing mental images.

Eagle Falls is thundering down to the bay. This is the lower falls; Upper Eagle Falls is across Highway 89, up the path that leads to Eagle Lake.

Snow melt from Desolation Wilderness creates Glen Alpine Falls. Photo/Kathryn Reed

This was not the only magical spot at this hour of the day. (Sunrise was at 5:39am.)

Glen Alpine Falls on the far end of Fallen Leaf Lake Road was the next destination. It was hard to catch a wink in the car; this El Dorado County owned road is horrendous, with potholes almost taking up a whole travel lane.

Wildflowers near Glen Alpine Falls are starting to bloom. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Still, the destination was worth testing the suspension and being worried about the alignment.

There is more water than rock showing; usually it’s the other way around.

The third fall was Hawley Grade in Meyers. It’s accessed at the end of South Upper Truckee Road.

Hawley Grade Falls are not passable right now. Photo/Kathryn Reed

When there is less water it’s possible to cross the falls. It doesn’t even look inviting right now or like it would be a possibility anytime soon.

This is a relatively short jaunt, with an elevation gain of 900 feet.

By 8:30am we had seen the sunrise, three waterfalls and did a short hike.

It’s naptime.

By Mark Robison, Reno Gazette-Journal
 
How dangerous are the 550 black bears in Nevada?

Fears would be understandable after black bears recently mauled four people in Alaska, killing two in separate attacks. 

The Nevada Department of Wildlife reports that the biggest perceived wildlife threats are not black bears but rather mountain lions and rattlesnakes. Indeed, the state is home to about 3,000 mountain lions and five species of rattlesnakes. Could either of these be the deadliest wild animals in Nevada?

Or maybe you’ve read these types of stories before and think the deadliest must be mosquitoes.

If you picked any of the above animals, you’d be wrong.

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By Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal

This week, when people are thinking about Fourth of July road trips and getting out of town, there’s good news and bad news about a recent study commissioned by WalletHub ranking the best states in the country to get on the open road.

The good news: Nevada ranked No. 7 in the country, ahead of Colorado and California. The bad news: The state might have gotten shortchanged in some of the data sets within the study.

To be sure, the study covered lots of ground and placed values on 22 metrics to determine where travelers can get the best bang for the buck.

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