Archive for 2015
By Tim Hauserman
If you don’t live at Tahoe you might not be aware of a great secret the locals keep from you. Hopefully they will not ostracize me and take away my locals credentials for passing it on here: September is better than August. It is just as beautiful, but the kids are back in school and the crowds are gone. If you can just find a way to get yourself here on a clear blue sky Wednesday morning in September you will know you have reached heaven.
Paddleboarding or kayaking:
Instead of having to get up at the crack of dawn to avoid the water skiers and wake boarders, who of course are getting up early to avoid the other water skiers and wakeboarders, you can take your time. Have a relaxing breakfast and another leisurely cup of coffee and let the temperature warm up a bit before heading down to Hurricane Bay or Tahoe Park, or along the shore of Donner Lake. There you can carry your board down to the empty beach, head out into the glassy water, and perhaps see one or two boats while you paddle joyfully for an hour.
Bike riding
Whether you are riding to the top of Barker Pass, from Donner Lake to Cisco Grove, or just along the Truckee River, the number of cars you will encounter on our favorite road rides is dramatically reduced this time of year. The same holds true for getting out on the mountain bike and riding the Emigrant Trail in Truckee, or the trails at Tahoe Cross-Country in Tahoe City. Pretty soon you will find lots of fall colors, but not lots of people.
Spend the night in the wilderness
The trails into the Desolation Wilderness are amazingly beautiful any time of year, but if you head out for a backpacking trip in September, you just might have one of Desolation’s prettiest lakes all to yourself.
Lie down on the beach and do nothing
Of course once you are done paddle boarding or kayaking or bike riding or hiking, you can drag a chair and a book and your favorite refreshment down to the beach. Then with the lake all to yourself alternate between reading a page and gazing out onto our favorite patch of big blue. Yep, now we are talking.
THINK OF ME, LYNN RICHARDSON, FOR ALL OF YOUR LAKE TAHOE AND TRUCKEE REAL ESTATE NEEDS!
www.lynnrichardson.net
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by Tim Hauserman
Photo taken from Tahoe Ironman website
Ironman Lake Tahoe returns to the region September 20th. While the race is this weekend, the racers have been training here all summer long. You’ve seen them riding there beautiful tri bikes over Brockway Summit, swimming along the shore of Lake Tahoe, and running on the Truckee River bike trail.
When race day finally arrives, for Ironman participants it is the final culmination of years of training and for many the realization of a dream.
What is Ironman:
The race begins with an early morning 2.4 mile swim from Kings Beach. Next comes a 112 mile bike ride that includes climbing over Brockway Summit, twice. Finally, the racers take on a marathon length 26.2 mile run along the Truckee River. The difficulty of the bike course and the high altitude of the entire event make Ironman Lake Tahoe one of the most challenging Ironman’s on the world circuit.
Photo from Ironman Lake Tahoe Website
Who will do it:
Several thousand athletes will compete in both the full and half Ironman. In addition to athletes from around the world, there is a smattering of local folks taking on the challenge who will be cheered on joyfully by their local fans.
Where do I watch it:
Pick up a copy of the Sierra Sun or North Tahoe Weekly for information on where to see the racers, traffic restrictions and road closures. The swim is in Kings Beach. The bike goes from Kings Beach to Tahoe City to Truckee, then out to Glenshire and back to Kings Beach on a Triangle loop that is repeated twice. The run starts in Squaw Valley and follows the Truckee River bike trail to Tahoe City, then goes back to Squaw, then heads back out on the bike trail for another half lap.
New route through Truckee:
This year’s Ironman has a new addition to the bike route. It will head out on Glenshire Road to Glenshire and then return to Truckee via the Truckee Legacy Bike Trail. The narrow Legacy Trail should be an excellent spot to watch the riders roar by.
Volunteer:
One of the best ways to see the event is to volunteer to help the athletes.
Use this link to get the details on volunteering. You can also contact a local service organization such as Tahoe Cross-Country Ski Area who organizes volunteers and benefits based on the number of volunteers they recruit.
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/events/americas/ironman/lake-tahoe/volunteer.aspx#axzz3lf7AA01l
THINK OF ME, LYNN RICHARDSON, FOR ALL OF YOUR LAKE TAHOE AND TRUCKEE REAL ESTATE NEEDS!
www.lynnrichardson.net
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By Michelle Portesi
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Recently I ran across this article by Country Living Magazine on ‘9 Things to Check For in a New House’ …(or at least ‘new’ to you.)
Along with the good, common sense reminders to ‘change the locks’ and ‘replace batteries in smoke detectors’, there are a few items you should add to your Tahoe/Truckee New Home ‘to do’ checklists. The mountain environment has special conditions that require extra considerations that could not only save you a lot of grief, but even save your life.
So in addition to Country Living’s checklist, we’ll add ours:
1) If your new home has a wood burning stove or fireplace, call a chimney sweep to give it a good cleaning. Nothing would be worse than buying a new home only to have it go up in flames from a chimney fire. Creosote builds up quickly over the course of a long cold winter, and it’s a safe bet that the previous owners didn’t spring for this expense just before they sold the house.
2) Buy wood! If you do have a wood burning stove and you’ve bought your home during the summer, that is the time to purchase wood for the coming winter. Prices tend to be cheaper during the summer, but once there’s even a hint of a nip in the air with fall fast approaching, you can bet those prices will be rising.
3) Invest in a ‘bear box’. These are metal containers with an animal proof latch that are embedded into the ground to house your trash cans. Wildlife is abundant in mountain communities, and bears are not only extremely opportunistic feeders (along with raccoons, and even your neighborhood dogs!), but they can completely destroy a standard trash can in short order, sometimes breaking into a garage to do it. You’ll have a lot of damage and cleanup as a result. Raccoons can’t be deterred from an unprotected container and will merely hiss at you from the comfort of their new homeowner supplied buffet line.
Save yourself the misery. Call one of the local purveyors to install a bear box for you.
Hey, thanks for the free grub. Sorry about the mess…
4) Stock up on candles, flashlights, fresh batteries, and kerosene lamps and oil. The power has a tendency to go out all too frequently whenever there is a big storm (or an errant accident hitting a power line). Having these items on hand will make it easier for you to stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night – or at the very least, enable you to read a book when you’re no longer hooked up to the grid for entertainment.
5) Purchase snow shovels, car ice scrapers and snow brushes. Those of you new to the community from warmer climes are in for a bit of ‘culture shock’ if you move here during the fall or winter. Having these items on hand BEFORE big storms hits are a necessity if you ever want to leave your house after any substantial amount of snowfall. In a pinch, a credit card makes a good ice scraper for your car windows, but it’s not something you want to rely on indefinitely. Don’t want to shovel all that snow yourself? Find out who the neighborhood snowplow guy is, and contract for his services early.
Only a few short hours ago I was asking myself ‘Gee, I wonder which snow drift is my car?’ …OK, Found it!
6) Alternative Cooking and heating sources. If you’ve purchased an ‘all electric’ home, consider switching to gas or installing a wood burning stove so that when the power does go out, you can at least stay warm and have a hot meal. And coffee.
You just can’t go without coffee…
THINK OF ME, LYNN RICHARDSON, FOR ALL OF YOUR LAKE TAHOE AND TRUCKEE REAL ESTATE NEEDS!
www.lynnrichardson.net
Share this: Lynn Richardson, Your Friend in High Places
YOUR FRIEND IN HIGH PLACES 