The furry, high-elevation animal has gone extinct in sections of Tahoe—land that was once its core habitat A scampering ball of fur with Mickey Mouse–round ears and a miniature bouquet of flowers in its mouth—the American pika has long been a prized sighting for those who...
Local nonprofit has enjoyed much success since forming in 1996 Jim Plehn spent transformative childhood summers on the edge of the Truckee River at Bear Rock, his family’s riverfront cabin just a few miles west of Tahoe City. After moving to Bear Rock full time in...
Conservation efforts seek to return Donner Summit wetland to its original biologically rich state Randy Westmoreland is walking across uneven ground, striding through the brown blades of dormant winter grass. His eyes are trained on the rise and fall of the earth, picking up the course...
In Tahoe, where seemingly every peak, forest and lake has been explored by a willing and adventurous public, the 1,320-acre Carpenter Valley just north of Truckee’s Tahoe Donner subdivision is an anomaly. The valley and its incredible scenery has remained closed and relatively untouched as...
Desert Research Institute eyeing 2018–19 winter for project Ambitious plans to boost snowfall in the Lake Tahoe region via drones came to a halt last winter, with huge storms reducing the need for man-made snow and regulatory processes hampering researchers’ hopes of flying their unmanned aircraft...
Nearly a decade after his discovery, Buddy the wolverine remains an unsolved mystery On a cold February day in 2008, then-graduate student Katie Moriarty was scanning through images from her 20 remote cameras set up throughout Sagehen Experimental Forest near Tahoe when something caught her eye. “I...
Seeking to reverse the effects of decades worth of environmental degradation, the California Tahoe Conservancy plans to restore some 525 acres of the South Shore’s Upper Truckee River Marsh, the Tahoe Basin’s largest wetland area and of key importance to Tahoe’s ecological balance. “From a...
Historic winter snowpack presents challenges for those in charge of releasing water from Lake Tahoe The Truckee River is a place of refuge for rafting, fishing and contemplation. It’s also a ribbon of life supplying the water needs of downstream users from Tahoe City to Reno...
Wolves—a symbol of wilderness and an icon of the American West—likely wandered the woods of Tahoe and the surrounding Sierra Nevada a century ago. Though estimates put the country’s total wolf population at more than two million when European settlers first arrived in the...
Once on the brink of extinction, bald eagles are now thriving in the Tahoe Basin and beyond The local Paiutes call them “ggwe’na’a.” The Shoshone, “biagwi’yaa.” To all Americans, they are our national symbol. The bald eagle is one of the most magnificent examples of...