Incline Village

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just days away. As the excitement of the holiday shopping season builds, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office offers some tips that will help everyone have a successful day, as long as they focus on personal safety.

Here are some tips to keep in mind before heading out to the stores:

First and foremost, stay alert. Do not get so caught up in the shopping frenzy that you lose awareness of your surroundings. Report suspicious activity to law enforcement or store security.

Construction on the new three mile shared-use path from Incline Village to Sand Harbor has ended for the season.

During this year's phase one, crews built an underpass beneath the highway to bring the upcoming shared use path from the east to west side of the road near the Flume Trail. In addition, work began on the three new parking areas located near the Ponderosa Ranch and Tunnel Creek Café that will provide safer options for the one million recreationists who visit the area each year. This year’s efforts also included the relocation of a sewer (effluent) pipe near Hidden Beach.

Ready to cut some firewood? Time is running out to do so on U.S. Forest Service land in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The last day to purchase fuelwood permit for the is on Friday, November 18 and the last day to cut wood is Sunday, November 20.

Permits cost $20 per cord, with a two-cord minimum purchase and a limit of 10 cords per household. Permits have specific conditions and complete information is provided when the permit is issued. Maps to designated cutting areas are also provided and must be in the permit holder’s possession along with the valid permit.

The popular “Plates for Powder” program and offers skiers and boarders two free lift tickets at one of ten resorts in Lake Tahoe if they purchase the new Lake Tahoe license plate in either California or Nevada.

“The mountains are covered in white from this weekend’s storm signaling that ski season is almost here,” said Amy Berry, CEO of the Tahoe Fund. “Get ready to ski at one of the 10 resorts in Tahoe who generously support this great program by purchasing your new California or Nevada Tahoe plate today.”

Our world is rapidly changing, including the coastal and inland waters. Conservation is essential in order to preserve these areas and the fish that live there but water conservation is a complex subject. Find out what is being done and the issues California's coast and inland waters are confronted with at the UC Davis Tahoe Science Center on Thursday, November 3.

Join Dr. Nann Fangue to learn how we can conserve our imperiled fishes and find solutions by understanding physiological specializations that allow animals to survive and thrive in complex environments.

2016 is the 26th year that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has handed out its "Best in the Basin" award for projects in the Lake Tahoe basin that demonstrate exceptional planning and implementation and compatibility with Lake Tahoe’s environment and communities.

During Wednesday's TRPA board meeting in Kings Beach, the nine winners for the year were honored.

The City of South Lake Tahoe was one of those recipients for the Bijou Bike Park project, a collaborative effort between the City and Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association.

Crews working on the SR28 Shared Use Path/Safety/Stormwater project in Incline Village will start a 24-hours-a-day schedule on Wednesday, Sept. 21, and then from Monday, Sept. 26 to Friday, Oct. 7.

The Nevada Department of Transportation has announced the updated late-September/early-October construction schedule to meet their original Phase 1 completion date of October 20.

Motorists should anticipate delays of up to 30 minutes with one-lane flagger controlled closures near Hidden Beach, one mile south of Incline Village. (During Phase 1, the average wait time has been 5-15 minutes.)

The first phase of the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) project along State Route 28 from Sand Harbor to Incline Village is now 25 percent completed.

Part of the completion includes a “shoofly,” a temporary lane detour around the existing road to keep traffic flow of one lane in each direction at Tunnel Creek

Upon completion the project will:

Include three plus miles of shared-use path from the south end of Incline Village to Sand Harbor
Relocate and also organize shoulder-parking areas near Ponderosa Ranch and Tunnel Creek Café

As the annual Shakespeare Festival on the North Shore winds down, organizers want to alert Bard fans of possible delays on getting to the event at Sand Harbor, both from the north and the south ends of the lake.

Construction has begun on Highway 28, and continues on Highway 50 around Cave Rock and on Spooner Summit. Lane closures are involved, so allow extra time to get to the the park which is located just south of Incline Village.

"It's going to be an interesting journey," then-TRPA director Juan Palma told Bob Mecay back in 2002. Little did Mecay know then that it would take until 2016 to see completion of that journey.

Mecay, President of Tahoe Beach Club, unveiled the end of the journey in a beachfront groundbreaking ceremony Monday in a spot that will see 143 condominium residences, a private beach club, two to five-bedroom condominiums, a private pier, lakefront clubhouse, health club, spa and pool.

An international paddleboard company, Jobe Sports, will be at Hidden Beach in Incline Village on Saturday, August 13 from noon to 2:00 p.m. They are offering a free paddleboarding event where rigid and inflatable paddleboards will be available for everyone to test out.

They'll also be giving away sponsored swag and gifts as well.

The Jobe Sports month-long tour started in San Diego in July and has made it to Lake Tahoe.

Check out #JobeSUP2thePeople and their website for more information on the tour stops: jobesports.com/sup2thepeople.

Research on the science of gratitude continues to accelerate rapidly. However, questions still remain: What are the functions of gratitude in the economy of human social behavior? What mechanisms are involved in the expression and detection of gratitude? Experiments and recent neuroimaging studies offer important clues as to why gratitude matters, how it works, and how we can collectively capitalize on its promise and potential.

A Gut-Feeling: How intestinal microbes modulate mood and behavior, with Melanie Gareau a physiologist at the University of California, Davis, is part of the Mental Health in the Mountains series of educational talks.

The passenger transportation system has seen little innovation since the advent of the Interstate Highway System. That is now changing. The ubiquity of smart phones is enabling the commercialization of a range of new mobility services, led by Uber and Lyft; rapid advances in battery and fuel cell technology are enabling electrification of vehicles; and rapid advances in digital technologies are enabling automation of vehicles. The challenge for policymakers is to direct these revolutions toward the public interest—including in the Tahoe Basin.

A 4,000 acres project in the North Lake Tahoe area is underway to thin trees in the forests to be both fire safe by reducing fuels, and to keep the forest healthy.

The latest project in the Incline Village area started last week on approximately 355 acres of National Forest System lands above Incline Village. Mechanical cut-to-length (CTL) tree removal will take place on USFS urban lots and in areas adjacent to communities over the next several months and some areas will be closed for public safety.

Join Dr. Geoff Schladow for an entertaining public presentation about the most important factors that affected the health of Lake Tahoe last year during the next U.C. Davis Tahoe Environmental Science Center program. Hear about the most pressing issues for this year, and the new programs that are designed to address them.

Fire and law enforcement officers across the State are working together to confiscate illegal fireworks and get them off the street. In Placer County, an announced inspection of all vehicles going through the Truckee agricultural station netted 1,882 pounds of illegal fireworks, resulting in 20 misdemeanor citations and seven felony arrests.

In another operation, CAL FIRE joined a multi-agency fireworks seizure operation in San Bernardino County that resulted in the confiscation of 25,406 pounds of illegal fireworks, 51 misdemeanor citations issued, as well as two felony arrests.

The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority would like to thank the volunteers, businesses, spectators, sponsors, and partners who helped to make the 2016 AMGEN Tour of California a success for our community. We are grateful for your support and generosity!

Prescribed burns are slated to continue this week, weather permitting. The Nevada Division of State Lands, the Nevada Division of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service are scheduled to begin fire operations on Monday, May 23, 2016 on both the Northeast and South shores of Lake Tahoe.

South Shore: Burning may take place off Lake Tahoe Boulevard and Sawmill Road, off Panther Lane near the west end of Gardner Mountain and off Santa Claus Drive and West River Parkway near Christmas Valley.

Northeast Shore: Near Incline Village in the Rocky Point area along Tunnel Creek Road.

Around the world, invasive species are notorious for their ability to out-compete native plants and animals. Once introduced to an area, they can spread out of control and fundamentally change both landscapes and ecologies, and then pose incredible challenges to manage or eradicate.

The Tahoe Transportation District (TTD) Board today unanimously approved a set of principles to clarify and guide the final design and implementation of the US Highway 50 South Shore Community Revitalization Project, also known as the Loop Road Project.

This plan that will answer some community member's concerns about the project by addressing right-of-way, housing, road construction, assistance and support for affected businesses, and continued community involvement.

An Incline Village woman was rescued from the cliffs above Vikingsholm in Emerald Bay on Thursday after she slipped while climbing down the mountain.

Jane Rylander had been climbing in the steep cliff bands from Vikingsholm parking lot down towards the main castle. She slipped and slid down the embankment becoming stuck on the cliff band. She was not injured but could not climb up or down and was in the need of rescue.

Prolonged drought periods often result in forest tree mortality, but this death varies across the Lake Tahoe Basin. The causes of tree mortality range from native bark beetles, forest pathogens (both native and invasive), stressors such as drought and salt stress, as well as historical land-use.

It has been six years since BP's offshore oil drilling disaster. On April 20, 2010 one of the largest accidental marine oil spills in the history of petroleum industry occurred, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill which discharged an estimated 210 million gallons of oile were discharged into the ocean, and multiple efforts to contain the flow failed.