Latest Sierra Nevada Stories
Organizers of the sixth annual Lake Tahoe Polar Plunge on the California-Nevada border said a record 300 people turned out to jump into the 39-degree water. Jody Filgo, who started the annual event six years ago with Elaine Glasser to benefit the Special Olympics, said at least 300 people jumped into the frigid lake Saturday to raise nearly $40,000 for the organization, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reported Monday. Filgo said the turnout Saturday was better than I ever would have imagined. People...
The nation's first travel site to focus exclusively on discount lift tickets expands opportunities for local residents and tourists to hit the slopes in Lake Tahoe SAN FRANCISCO, March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Liftopia.com, the online resource for skiers and riders to purchase discount lift tickets, announced today new partnerships with several of Lake Tahoe's leading ski resorts including Alpine Meadows, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Mt. Rose, and Homewood Mountain Resort. The new collaboration will allow...
LOS ANGELES, March 6 /PRNewswire/ -- What stories do distinguished photographers Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Toyo Miyatake's photographs tell in this motion picture? Toyo's Camera reveals a riveting chapter of Japanese-American history during WWII. The award-winning film Toyo's Camera (http://www.toyoscamera.com) captures this history through Toyo Miyatake's lens. And internationally acclaimed Grammy and Golden Globe award-winning recording artist Kitaro provides the accompanying CD...
Toyo's Camera Makes Its U.S. Premiere in Los Angeles on March 6 LOS ANGELES, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- What stories do distinguished photographers Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Toyo Miyatake's photographs tell in this motion picture? Toyo's Camera reveals a riveting chapter of Japanese-American History during WWII. The award-winning film Toyo's Camera (http://www.toyoscamera.com) captures this history through Toyo Miyatake's lens! And internationally acclaimed Grammy and Golden Globe...
Officials overseeing the culinary arts program at California's El Dorado County jail said 36 prisoners have so far completed the cooking classes. The program, which the 158-bed jail and Lake Tahoe Community College have operated since 2007, has resulted in baked goods that won 20 ribbons and one best of show at the El Dorado County Fair, The Sacramento Bee reported Monday. Sheriff's Lt. Randy Peshon, commander of the jail, said the program -- which bears the unofficial motto: So good, it's a...
Police say six California residents have been arrested in a sting operation that offered ski-lift tickets in exchange for drugs. Mono County sheriff's deputies told The Orange County (Calif.) Register Wednesday that the suspects were busted after answering an ad posted on Craigslist.com that offered to swap ticket vouchers for the Mammoth Lakes ski area for narcotics. Department spokeswoman Shannon Kendall told the Register that the operation netted a pond of marijuana and quantities of...
California is hovering near the worst drought in the state's history, officials said after reporting the Sierra Nevada snowpack is 61 percent of normal. California usually gets about 20 percent of its annual precipitation in January, but this year a string of dry, sunny days graced the state, reducing the anticipated precipitation, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The dry weather is occurring as the state's water system is pressured by an increasing population, an old infrastructure and...
California water rationing is almost certain, with Sierra Nevada snow levels below average despite recent winter storms, officials said. The water content of the snow -- the key measurement for how much water will flow into reservoirs -- is 83 percent of normal, indicating a fairly dry start to the snow season after two consecutive dry years, officials said. Over the last two weeks, the snow has been good and there have been some strong storms, senior state meteorologist Elissa Lynn told the...
Climate change can have significant impacts on high-elevation lakes and imperiled Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged frogs that depend upon them, according to U.S. Forest Service and University of California, Berkeley, scientists.Their findings appear in the current issue of the journal "Herpetological Conservation and Biology" where they show how a combination of the shallow lakes drying up in summer and predation by introduced trout in larger lakes severely limits the amphibian's...
Global warming is causing major shifts in the range of small mammals in Yosemite National Park, one of the nation's treasures that was set aside as a public trust 144 years ago, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.The study, published in the Oct. 10 issue of Science, compared small mammal populations in the park today versus 90 years ago and found that mammals like shrews, mice and ground squirrels have moved to higher elevations or reduced their ranges...
Latest Sierra Nevada Reference Libraries
Sequoia National Park is located in the United States in the southern area of the Sierra Nevada. The park contains 404,063 acres of protected land that was once inhabited by the Western Mono Native American tribe. The best evidence of Native American inhabitants are the pictographs found on Potwisha and Hospital Rock and bedrock mortars, tools that were sued to crush acorns. When European explorers and settlers entered the area, smallpox had already decimated the Native American...
Yosemite National Park is located in eastern California in the United States in the central area of Sierra Nevada, extending to the western slopes of the range. The park holds 761,268 acres of protected land. The area became very popular after Thomas Ayres, the artist who was responsible for much of the publicity of the area, and an entrepreneur named James Mason Hutchings visited in 1855. Early tourists that visited Yosemite before it was a national park could enjoy passing over the Wawona...
Kings Canyon National Park is located in southern Sierra, Nevada. The park encompasses an area that was once General Grant National Park, which was established in 1890, in order to preserve a grove of giant sequoia trees. The area was known to European settlers in the mid-nineteenth century, but was not well-known until 1873, after John Muir visited and found the environment to be similar to Yosemite valley. Harold Ickes, a United States Secretary of Interior, supported the idea of...
Fallon Nevada is located on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain which has a huge impact in the type of weather in the region and is more of an arid type pattern. Temperatures for Fallon NV: December and January mark the coldest months in the area with average temps around 20-40F. February through March temps warm into the average of 30-50 increasing to 60 by March. April is a mild month with temps in the 40-60 range on average. May and June the average temps warm to 50-70...
The Northern Alligator Lizard, Elgaria coerulea, is a medium-sized lizard that lives in the North American west cost. It occurs along the Pacific Coast and in the Rocky Mountains from southern British Columbia through Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana south through Oregon until the coastal range and the Sierra Nevada in central California. These lizards can attain a length of about 10 inches long with nearly 4 inches of it being the snout. They have a distinct skin fold on...
