Tag: bear

fire, weather, wildlife, wind

What’s Happening Here in Markleeville Since the Tamarack Fire? Here’s Some News

IT’S Monday night, August 30th, and I’m thinking about what’s happening here in the California Alps, which includes one of the jewels of the world, Lake Tahoe. These fires…it’s surreal and they’re taking on an almost human quality. Or should I say a demon quality?

I’M a firm believer in balance and so I understand, and welcome in the right circumstances, fire. And water (thinking of you New Orleans). I also believe that we are reaping what we have sewn. Not going to go there – down that “climate change is here, damnit” path – that is. Oh wait…

SO, as I was saying. Life around here since July 16th has been strange. Scary, anxiety-ridden, angry, sad, happy, fulfilling, disappointing, unhappy, pissed-off, irritated, STRANGE. I don’t recall ever feeling such a range of emotions over such a short period of time.

NONETHELESS, life goes on. And we go on and try to be normal as best we can. Since Sunday, we’ve had these little windows of fresh air in the middle of this smoke-filled firestorm that has seemingly targeted the area.

GREEN AQI all day today, for example. It’s eery…Just a few miles away, to our northwest, is a nasty looking smoke plume from the Caldor Fire. I took the pic at the top of this post yesterday (Sunday), on my way home from a ride up Hwy. 4. There was a “good-air window” and I took it. I cut the ride short, though, as the smoke seemed to be pushing in. That is what I saw from Monitor Junction on my way back to HQ.

This is what I saw this morning, looking north towards Lake Tahoe from Hwy 4. at Raymond Meadow Creek.

If you look closely you can see the smoky haze in the distance.

OH shit. That doesn’t look good, I said to myself. Been saying that a lot lately…Also been attending a lot of live fire-briefing events on Facebook.

AND constantly checking Twitter or other sources for the latest intel while trying to separate the wheat from the chaff as I go.

NEVERENDING. And last night, Mrs. California Alps Cycling and I began thinking about yet another evacuation. Just 6 miles away, in the Mesa Vista area of Alpine Co., they’re on an evacuation warning. The fire has reached Christmas Valley and has made its way into South Lake Tahoe so the way things are going, we figure, we could be under evacuation warnings sometime soon ourselves. Hopefully not but we are getting good at it. Something I hoped I’d never say.

In Other News…

OUR internet is working again and that’s making life much more liveable. I remember when internet was a nice-to-have (yes, I’m old…er) but today it’s a must have, IMHO. Yet so many people less fortunate than I don’t have it. We learned through this experience that good internet (and cell service) is as necessary as power and water. Eye-opening for sure.

THE Markleeville General Store is still closed. 🙁 Sad but true. Repairs and such post-fire.

OUTWEST Cafe, as well as the Toll Station, and the Cutthroat, are open.

FISHING is pretty much non-existent. There have been no plants since before the fire and there is hardly any camping here since our national forests are closed, but the Carson River Resort is open and based on what I’ve heard, pretty booked up.

AIR quality? you ask. We feel guilty. Honestly. The air here has been great this entire week. What I saw Sunday never made it any farther south and I got out for a ride this morning. It was so pretty I almost forgot what was happening in South Lake.

RED flag warnings there (and here too), but the wind that is making the Caldor Fire do what it’s doing is pushing the smoke to our north and east.

This was a/o 2:45 p.m. today.

WATER is an issue, too. Since our watershed was hammered pretty hard, and we have limited resources, at this point we’re on water restrictions with limited outside watering. Thankfully that recently changed. Up until about ten (10) days ago landscape watering was not allowed at all. Small (yet big) victory.

WE’VE been invaded by bears! Well that’s not really true. They were here first. Nevertheless they are more prevalent and getting a bit more brave. Earlier this week my neighbor’s car was torn up pretty well. First time since we’ve lived here that I’ve seen that.

THEY, like other fauna, are hungry and since so much of the surrounding forest was torched, animals and birds are coming to any oases they can find. Lucky us (kinda), we’ve got one. The wild-turkeys, with their youngins, are especially welcome.

With That Said…

WE’RE thinking about our friends and neighbors here in Alpine Co. (some of the county are on evac. warnings due to the Caldor Fire) and everyone else who has been effected by “our fire” as well as the Caldor Fire, and other fires raging, mostly in the west.

LIFE will get back to normal at some point. The new-normal I guess. Whatever that is.

things to do, things to see, wildlife

And Now for Something Completely Different…

Since this is a blog that is pretty much devoted to all things cycling, it is a rare day, and a challenging one, when other than mentioning cycling in this paragraph, I don’t mention cycling, or mountain biking, or gravel riding, or something related thereto in the remainder of the post.

Okay, I’m glad I got that out of my system.

‘Twas This Bear That Made Us Go There

Hey Boo-boo…Where’s that pic-a-nic basket?

Or not go there, if you will. Our friendly neighborhood bear (one of them anyway) has visited us quite a bit this summer and fall and was the inspiration behind this “different post.” We’re pretty sure it’s one of two, approximately 3-year old cubs (are they still cubs at that age?), but we’re not sure if it’s the formerly golden fleeced cub we’ve shown you before, or its sibling. As you can see it’s a well-fed bear and it appears to be ready for the winter hibernation. Looking closely at the video you’ll notice that it does eyeball the bird seed-feeder (aka bear crack) that is hanging from the stair landing rail on its way up to see about that picnic basket.

The black bins that it sniffs are full of recycling and it now knows (because it has opened them previously) that there are no grinds in there. As it approaches the window we think it got wind of, or heard, my wife working inside at the dining room table, hence the abrupt turnaround and departure. The feeder, by the way, is taken in every night. Yup, if you’re going to do the seed-feeder ‘thang in bear country you’ve got to be diligent.

We remind ourselves often that yes, we do live in bear country, and to be honest we think that’s pretty cool, but it does come with responsibility. We don’t feed the bears and do chase them away when we see them.

Loope Canyon and Leviathan Mine Road Recon

In case you hadn’t guessed it, I’m switching tacks now.

This past Monday the little woman and I decided to do a bit of 4-wheelin’ and explore a couple of local fire roads that we thought might have some potential. Loope Canyon Road intersects with Highway 89 (on the way to Monitor Pass from the western side) as does Leviathan Mine Road, and as it turns out Loope Canyon also intesects directly with Leviathan Mine Road. Since I am not mentioning “you-know-what” in this post I won’t say that it might be a good route for well…you know.

Various images, one with the fall color vibe, taken from Loope Canyon Road and Leviathan Mine Road.

We were able to travel from Loope Canyon Road (some pretty nasty gravel, er rocks, on that bit let me tell you) to Leviathan Mine Road (much nicer, fairly graded road with one exception) and from there we made our way to U.S. Highway 395 in Nevada.

This oil drum, by the way, is on Leviathan Mine Road at the CA/NV border. It seems appropriate, and a bit hilarious we thought, that it is shot full of holes.

The entire route was about 22 miles with over 3000 feet of elevation gain. The section from 395 up to Highway 89 (just above Heenan Lake) covered almost 15 miles and included about 2000 feet of climbing. Some possibilities we think; just need to figure out whether we do a loop, a hill climb or something in between. Won’t be this year so we’ve got some time to figure it out. If you have any suggestions do feel free to share!

In the meantime I’ll leave you with these views from HQ of Hot Springs Creek, aka the middle fork of the Carson River. It’s low but it’s still flowing and today a flock of Pinyon Jays decided to do a group dunk and preening session. Ahh, fall…my favorite season here in the California Alps…

  • Hot Springs Creek – looking downstream
  • Hot Springs Creek – looking upstream

We wish you and yours well and hope you’re successfully weathering the various storms, some figurative, some literal, that are taking place in our world today.

Please stay healthy and safe!

birdwatching, science, things to see, wildlife

A Walk on the Wildlife Side

As a follow up to my last post, and since we recently installed a wildlife camera here at California Alps Cycling HQ, I thought I’d regale you with some photos of the wild things that we see here in the California Alps.

Left image taken in 2017. I was riding home from town after a meeting and it was coming right up the road! As I approached it went up the embankment and posed for me. Same bear (I think) on the right, later that year.

We’ve seen bears since but due to the last couple of good winters they haven’t been quite so visible.
Here’s “Yogi” in action!

This time of year we see more eagles than usual. While there are a couple regular mating pairs of baldies at two (2) of our local lakes, during the winter we tend to see more of them, as well as some Goldens (alas, no good pix of them yet) due to the calf-birthing that takes place nearby in Carson (aka Eagle) Valley. They are here for the after-birth (births?). Yeah, somewhat gross but I like the fact that the eagles don’t mind cleaning up after the mama-cows. I suspect the ranchers like it too – nothing worse than stepping in a gut-pile!

The bald eagle on the left was flying over Heenan Lake last spring and the one on the right (you’ll need to squint or zoom) was taken New Year’s Day this year, near Genoa.

We’ve got a rafter of wild turkeys that hang out nearby too. While I am a hunter (and have taken one in the past) I don’t hunt anything here on the property – we enjoy the company too much. I can’t speak for the resident coyote(s) though.

Many people don’t know that if Benjamin Franklin had his way the wild turkey would be our national bird. While they are beautiful birds (and big too), and have the vision of an eagle, I personally think the Founding Fathers made the right choice.

Speaking of coyotes…There’s a sizable number of them here in Markleeville and they’ve been known to work together to take outdoor pets. Just last week we saw three (3) of them here at HQ just after dusk. Last summer, one of them took one of our neighbor’s chickens. They are wiley (pun intended) suckers.

Caught this guy on our wildlife camera just last week.
SQUIRREL!
Looks like it’s thinking about what to do next or perhaps trying to figure out where it put those pine nuts.

We’re pretty sure we’ve got a mountain lion in the area and so I’m hoping to get a shot of it soon. I’ll keep you posted!

Evidence of a lion? We think so. These photos were taken earlier this month.

We knew there were WILD animals here, no doubt, but to see them, or evidence of them, in person, makes it much more real. Have any photos of wildlife you’ve taken while on a ride or hike in the California Alps? Feel free to post them on our Facebook page (@bikedalps) if so!

Stay wild my friends, and ride safe!