Month: October 2014

A Shinook Helicopter hauls trees down from the Red Dog / Heidi’s area of Squaw Valley.

Several projects have kept Squaw Valley and KSL busy this fall. Earlier this month a helicopter placed huge burlap and mesh foil mats over ski runs on Red Dog and Resort Chair terrain. The mats are designed to help with vegetation seeding and erosion control. One might also think they could help the resort open groomers with a minimal amount of snow since the mats basically create a glorified carpet over select ski runs.

Squaw is also undertaking an aggressive forest health management plan which will remove 5,000 dead or diseased trees from the Red Dog region of the lower mountain. Lower level vegetation that could serve as fire fuel will also be removed from Red Dog Face to Poulsens Gully. Although the primary intention of the project is to improve the natural habitat and reduce the risk of wildfire, skiers will be delighted in over 100 acres of new tree skiing access. This should be especially noteworthy on storm days when Squaw struggles to get the upper mountain open.

Lumber from the tree thinning project ready to be driven out of Squaw.

Burlap and mesh sheets in the Squaw parking lot await placement by helicopter onto lower mountain ski runs.

Crews work on the hanger of the Squaw tram during annual fall maintenance.

A few inches of snow fell above 7,000 on Saturday. More precipitation is forecast for the weekend.

New snow at Boreal on Saturday.

Volunteers remove milfoil from the Truckee River.

The 19th Annual Truckee River Day was held Sunday. 400 volunteers completed restoration work at 14 different sites including Prosser Creek, Martis Valley and of course the Truckee River. The three year drought has reduced water levels enough to access and remove large amounts of Eurasion milfoil, an invasive weed which has flourished on the upper portions of the Truckee River.

Drought has reduced the Truckee River to a trickle just past the dam in Tahoe City.