SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The California Tahoe Conservancy’s Upper Truckee Marsh property temporarily closes to dogs starting May 1, 2026. This annual seasonal closure prevents dogs from entering sensitive habitat for birds and other wildlife during the breeding season. People must keep their dogs away from the closed area of the Marsh through July 31. The Marsh reopens to leashed dogs on August 1.
Conservancy staff and California Highway Patrol officers monitor these areas for compliance.
The Conservancy manages about 560 acres at the Upper Truckee Marsh—one of the largest remaining marshes in the Sierra Nevada—to preserve, restore, and enhance natural resources and wildlife habitat, and enhance outdoor recreation opportunities consistent with natural resource protection. To advance these objectives, the Conservancy Board adopted a resolution in 2010 that prohibits dogs within the Upper Truckee Marsh from May 1 through July 31.
Cove East, the Conservancy property north of Venice Drive and along the west bank of the Upper Truckee River, remains open for year-round access to leashed dogs. An accessible trail leads from the east end of Venice Drive to Lake Tahoe.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – The boat launch at Sand Harbor State Park is scheduled to open for the season on Friday, May 1, 2026, though visitors should be aware that no docks will be available at the launch due to storm damage sustained during an April weather event.
High winds and rough lake conditions damaged the docks at the boat launch, requiring them to be removed from the water for repairs. Nevada State Parks staff are actively working to fabricate new docks and return them to service as quickly as possible.
Photo of the damaged dock.Provided / NSP
Until repairs are complete and the docks are reinstalled, boaters using the launch should plan accordingly and be prepared for no available dock access or tie-up area while launching and retrieving vessels.
The boat launch itself will remain operational and open to the public as scheduled.
Nevada State Parks will provide updates and notify the public once the repairs are complete and the docks have been returned to the water. For more information, and to stay up-to-date, visit parks.nv.gov.
The broken dock was removed from the lake.Provided / NSP
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – A ski and ride pass unlike any other, the 2026-27 Ski California Gold Pass goes on sale May 1. Valued for the transferable, unrestricted access it provides to whomever has it in their possession, the Gold Pass is one of the most exclusive passes in the ski industry and provides access to 36 downhill and cross-country ski areas in California and Nevada.
Only a limited number of passes are available for sale annually, making it one of the most coveted passes for skiers, snowboarders, and organizations who purchase them for use as an employee or client perk.
“The Gold Pass is unmatched in terms of the access it provides all season long to the best skiing, snowboarding, and cross-country skiing at ski areas in California and Nevada,” said John Rice, Ski California president. “Fully transferable so that it can be shared with family, friends, employees or clients, the Gold Pass has no blackout dates, offers unlimited use at participating ski areas, and includes direct-to-lift access at most of the 36 ski areas. It truly is the ultimate ski pass.”
The 2026-27 Ski California Gold Pass will be available for $4,250 per pass while supplies last. Purchasers will have the option to pay in full, or with a non-refundable $1,150 deposit per pass if purchased by May 29, with the balance due in four months.
What happens inside a Tahoe home when no one’s there, and how owners deal with what gets left behind.
A place in Tahoe can sit closed up for a good part of the year. You lock the door, head back home, and that’s it for a while. The house just sits there through the cold, with everything inside it. Come back a few months later and it’s a bit of a mixed bag; some things are fine, some aren’t. Fortunately, there is a solution to be found in seasonal storage for vacation home.
Preparing a Tahoe Property for Seasonal Closure
Getting a place ready before winter sets in is not just about pipes and heating. What stays inside the house makes a difference. Fabrics hold moisture, wood reacts to cold, and smaller household items tend to suffer the most when a place sits unheated for months.
A lot of owners end up clearing out anything that does not need to be there. That usually means linens, cushions, rugs, kitchen gear, and smaller appliances. It is not a full move-out, more of a reset so the house can sit without taking unnecessary wear. This is where self storage units for seasonal storage starts to make sense, especially when the same cycle repeats every year.
The scale is usually smaller than people expect at first. A 10×10 unit can handle soft furnishings, boxed items, and a fair amount of loose gear. Step up to a 10×20 and it starts to take full room contents, including larger pieces that are better off out of the cold. People often look at available unit sizes and locations when planning this kind of move, just to get a sense of what fits and what needs to stay behind.
Protecting Interiors From Temperature and Humidity Swings
Leaving everything in place works for some homes, but it comes with trade-offs. Tahoe weather does not stay steady. Temperatures swing, moisture builds, then dries out again. Over a few months, that cycle starts to show on anything that is sensitive.
Wood can warp or crack. Upholstery can pick up damp and hold it. Electronics do not always recover well after sitting in cold conditions for extended periods. None of this is dramatic on day one, but it adds up by the time the place is opened again.
That is where climate controlled storage for second home use comes into play. The goal is not convenience, it is preservation. A stable environment removes most of the stress that changing conditions put on materials. Items come back in the same condition they left, which is usually the point.
Homes that are used more frequently can get away with leaving things in place. Properties that sit for three or four months at a time tend to show more wear, especially at higher elevations where temperature changes are sharper.
Managing the Gap Between Selling and Relocating
There is another situation that comes up more often than expected. A property gets sold before the next one is ready, or plans change halfway through a move. That leaves a gap where everything needs to go somewhere, even if it is only for a short stretch.
In that case, the question turns from protection to logistics. What goes back to the main residence, what stays local, and what gets held off-site until the next step is clear. A storage unit between homes becomes a practical way to bridge that gap without rushing decisions.
Tahoe properties tend to have a mix of items that do not always fit easily into a primary residence. Outdoor gear, seasonal furniture, and spare household items can pile up quickly. Holding those items outside the home for a period keeps the move manageable and avoids overcrowding one space with everything at once.
Working Around Unpredictable Seasonal Timelines
Timelines rarely line up cleanly. Weather can delay access, sales can close earlier or later than planned, and travel schedules change. What looks like a fixed plan in October can move around by the time winter sets in.
That is where month-to-month storage becomes useful. It gives some room to adjust without locking into a fixed end date. Items can stay put until the house is ready again or until the next move is confirmed.
This kind of flexibility fits the way Tahoe properties are used. Owners come and go, sometimes on short notice, and the house does not always follow a strict calendar.
A Closed Property Still Needs Managing
A closed house might look like it is on pause, but everything inside it keeps reacting to the conditions around it. Cold, moisture, and time all have an effect, even when nothing is being used.
Clearing out the right items, protecting what stays, and having a plan for the in-between periods tends to keep things simple. It is not about doing more work, it is about avoiding small problems that build up over a season.
LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – After years of extinction in California, the state could have a roadmap to reintroduce the grizzly bear by 2028 through California SB 1305, or the California Grizzly Restoration Act. Others worry about the impact that reintroducing an apex predator could pose to rural communities in bear country.
The bill, which was introduced by Sen. Richardson and coauthored by Sen. Weber Pierson, Stern and Blakespear, would require the Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop a roadmap for the reintroduction of grizzly bears. This would require a scientific assessment and consultation with Native American tribes in California. The California Grizzly Restoration Act was also co-sponsored by the Yurok and Tejon tribes.
The California Grizzly Restoration Act passed in one senate committee with a 5-2 vote and is set for a hearing on May 4.Metro Creative
Crucially, the bill would prohibit reintroduction until ecological and biological research was done into the viability of establishing a grizzly population, along with consultation with tribes and communities.
Grizzlies have been extinct in California since 1924 after they were killed by settlers, miners, ranchers and government agents. In the time since, California has recovered various species and reintroduced them to the state, such as the California condor, tule elk, gray wolf and North American beaver.
Although it was thought that the subspecies in California was distinct, genomic research has shown that they were part of the greater Ursus arctos populations distributed through Montana, Wyoming and western Canada. Those populations would provide the potential sources for grizzly reintroduction.
The California Grizzly Restoration Act passed in one senate committee with a 5-2 vote and is set for a hearing on May 4.
Assemblymember Heather Hadwick, who represents District 1 (including Tahoe), has opposed this bill, saying that the introduction could impact livestock, public safety and local economies.
“I am dedicated to continuing to advocate for a practical, science-based approach that prioritizes public safety, protects working lands, and ensures rural voices are not sidelined in decisions that directly impact their way of life,” said Hadwick. “Our wildlife management system is already stretched thin, with increasing predator populations and habitat pressures contributing to ecological imbalance and limited prey availability every day.”
There’s concern among residents that given black bear and human interactions in Tahoe, grizzly bears may be far less friendly and more prone to attack when interacting with people. Danielle Oyler, who works at Montana’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks department, told the Tribune that when managing human-bear conflict, grizzlies and black bears are attracted to the same sources.
“Grizzlies and black bears overlap in population here, and in the western half of Montana, we see some of those human-bear interactions,” said Oyler. “Grizzlies are also attracted to things like garbage, birdfeeders and pet food—anything that provides calories to them.”
Oyler says they deal with it in the same way too. “We use the same deterrent methods, like electric fences and mats, noise makers and bear-resistant containers.”
Anecdotally, black bears seem to be more often sighted in towns with black bear and grizzly populations, but Oyler says this could be a result of a number of factors. Black bears may tolerate humans better than grizzly bears, or on the flip side, humans may have low tolerance for grizzly bears and are more likely to scare them away.
A 2024 study in Yellowstone National Park on black bears and grizzly bears showed that grizzlies were tolerant of recreationists and rarely attacked people, but were more likely to display agitation or warning behaviors rather than the neutral state black bears tended to show. However, attacks from both grizzly bears and black bears were recorded more often in the backcountry areas.
But what about how grizzlies and black bears interact with each other? Oyler says that food competition and pressures could exert an impact on how they behave. She noted that among other bears in Alaska, it has been observed that a higher food availability leads to higher tolerance for other bears—that is, the more food there is, the less territorial bears are, since there’s plenty to go around.
In 2010, Schwartz et al. published a study that showed black bears were likely adjusting their behaviors, preferring to be more active in the day rather than dawn and dusk, which is when grizzly bears tend to be active. The authors pointed out that bears also alter their activity patterns in response to humans.
There’s clear anxieties among rural communities about the impact to livestock and those who recreate in backcountry should grizzly bears be reintroduced, especially as the current bill means that the grizzly bear gets several exemptions to the current Fish and Wildlife Code. But the bill may continue to garner support, as the text reads:
“The grizzly bear holds enduring cultural, historical, ecological, and symbolic significance as a vital relative to many California Native American tribes, the emblem on the California State Flag, and the official state animal of California. Evaluating whether reintroduction may be feasible and advisable in particular areas of the state is also consistent with the state’s policy to maintain and restore healthy, natural ecosystems that sustain communities, support the economy, provide for recreation, and preserve California’s history, culture, and traditions, while recognizing the historical and ongoing harms inflicted on wildlife, natural systems, and California Native American tribes”
“Beyond Awestruck: The Scientific Search for Connection” studies the feeling of awe roused by participants in Lake TahoeMaya Duhl / Tahoe Daily Tribune
LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – The pressures of life, whether they come from the struggle to pay your bills, the workload you’re carrying, or while experiencing the negative aspects of things you can’t control, there’s a moment for many where all of that slips away – it’s just you as you are and the nature around you. For those of us living in or visiting Lake Tahoe, that relief can be found just outside the door. “Beyond Awestruck: The Scientific Search for Connection” is a three-part docuseries studying the feeling of awe a person experiences, what invokes that feeling and the benefits imposed. The study’s muse? One-of-a-kind Lake Tahoe.
“Awe and experiences in nature are pivotal to the human experience. They matter for people’s well-being. They matter for people’s social relationships, and here we’re really trying to map out the ways in which experiences of awe and experiences in nature help people solve essential problems in their lives,” said Paul Piff, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Irvine and leader of the experiment to measure moments of awe.
The 2025 project took approximately nine months, from brainstorming and planning to the completion of filming. Among the very few challenges Dr. Piff and his team faced during the project, he told the Tribune, “Personally, I felt like it was an embarrassment of riches in terms of trying to pick which of the many, many awe-inspiring locations to run studies and film in.”
Dr. Paul Piff has been studying the psychology behind awe for more than a decade Provided/Visit Lake Tahoe
So what is awe and why did Dr. Piff and his team choose Lake Tahoe to study it? Awe can be described as many things – profound reverence, wonder, or inspiration. Lake Tahoe, known for its deeply rich history and its intricate and vast array of nature, seems to possess all the ingredients needed for such a unique research project.
Over the course of seven studies while using what they call the “awe meter”, researchers in “Beyond Awestruck”conduct experiments that test the many impacts awe can have on a human being.
In the series, complex topics are touched on including anxiety, depression, suicide, and spirituality, with live accounts and first-hand experiences from people who used nature as a way to heal. For some, it was Tahoe’s nature that provided relief.
“I met so many folks that shared their love for Tahoe, and the personal impact it has on them,” said Piff. “One couple recounted how, in looking over the entirety of the lake, it reminded them of all the different experiences they’d had around it, in their many decades together. It brought them closer to one another, by virtue of reminding them of all the times they’d shared in and around Tahoe. This really touched me.”
One participant in the study during episode two of the series noted how overwhelming it was to see the forest, the mountains and the lake – all in one view, saying, “It didn’t seem real.” It invokes the question: do locals forget they live in one of the most sought-after places in North America? Do they lose that sense of awe after getting used to the views?
Participants are not only observed hiking, paddleboarding or overlooking the lake on the Heavenly Observation Deck, they’re talking about their experiences, how they feel during those moments, and we get to watch. For locals, we can connect to these familiar places – Inspiration Point in Emerald Bay, Echo Lake, the Tahoe Rim Trail, the Heavenly Gondola, and even some familiar faces, such as Adrian Ballinger, Founder of Alpenglow Expeditions, and some of the faces of the Washoe Tribe.
Interview of Adrian Ballinger during the filming of “Beyond Awestruck: The Scientific Search for Connection” Provided/Visit Lake Tahoe
The beauty of the study isn’t just about the singular moments in which awe is felt, it’s also about the longevity in which that feeling curates a beneficial influence on the participant.
Results of the study are profound, showing that experiences of awe in Lake Tahoe led to a 20% boost in environmental stewardship, and a 13% increase in confidence to have meaningful conversations. Over the course of the seven studies, Dr. Piff and his team found that over the span of more than 1000 participants, 34% found an increase of awe observed in and around Lake Tahoe. 33% found an increase in happiness from just two minutes of mindful appreciation of Tahoe.
Dr. Piff notes that the work is still on-going, and plans to return to Tahoe to continue the study will take place in the coming months.
When asked what he hopes the audience takes away from this docuseries, beyond exploring the science of awe and the search for connection, Piff said, “To go out in search of awe, for the betterment of their individual lives and the world around them.”
“Awe can help you find better health, more happiness, stronger relationships, and a deeper connection to the world. And, importantly, awe is relatively easy to find, even in your own backyard if you look for it.”
LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. –The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) is reminding residents, property owners, and project managers that the grading and digging season for permitted projects in the Lake Tahoe Basin begins May 1.
Grading and digging work are confined to drier months to protect Lake Tahoe’s famed water clarity. Sources of erosion and sediment are among the main contributors to the loss of lake clarity. Through the commitment of property owners and public agencies, Best Management Practices (BMPs) retrofits and meadow restoration and water quality improvement projects are keeping more than 500,000 pounds of sediment out of the lake every year and lake clarity has stabilized.
Widespread erosion and sediment-laden runoff can flow into Lake Tahoe during storm events and when soil is saturated.Provided / TRPA
Working in dry conditions prevents soil compaction and stops loose soil and mud from washing away from project sites or into roadways, storm drains, waterways, and the lake. During the May 1 through October 15 grading season, soil work can proceed in dry conditions, but is prohibited when a project area is covered with snow, during periods of precipitation, and when ground is saturated, muddy, or unstable.
Although all grading is prohibited in wet conditions, not all digging requires a permit. More information is available at trpa.gov/applications-forms under Grading.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – The Incline Village roundabout at the intersection of Mount Rose Highway and Tahoe Blvd will soon undergo improvements.
Known for its bronze animals, the talent of local artist June Brown, the roundabout was installed in 2012 as part of the Nevada Department of Transportation’s effort to improve roadways on the North Shore.
Over the years, invasive plants have overrun the roundabout and irrigation issues have prevented planted perennials from thriving. The sculptures and the traffic circle, with its low-mound design, have also been subject to car crashes.
Improvements focus on the safety and aesthetics of the roundabout, including raising the mound, adding irrigation, and incorporating elements that reflect the Tahoe East Shore’s natural beauty, such as granite boulders, fir and aspen trees, and a succession of perennials.
The project represents a public-private collaboration with strong community involvement and fundraising efforts to bring the vision to life.
Incline Village Main Street, a program through the Incline Village Crystal Bay Business & Community Association (IVCBA) to beautify and revitalize commercial areas, is leading the roundabout initiative, orchestrating funding and community involvement.
The traffic circle has had strong community participation since its inception, with residents envisioning the roundabout as a traffic solution and raising funds for the art display. Over the years, maintenance of the roundabout has passed from one community group to another. Incline Property Management now does the maintenance cleanup every spring pro bono. IVCBA is responsible for the sculptures.
The Incline Village Main Street design team, led by Linda Offerdahl, Christine Karnofsky, and Steve Porten, coordinated public input for the initial sketch for the improvements.
Incline Village locals Dale Smith of Smith Design Group and Larry Wodarski of IPM also helped with design.
Incline Village contractor, F.W. Carson Co., who placed the bronze sculptures in 2012, will conduct the improvement work.
Multiple agencies and companies have committed in-kind donations, according to IVCBA, including F.W. Carsn Co.’s donation of labor to place the boulders, which Realberry (owner of the Cal Neva) donated. Realberry’s contractors, SMC and SNC, are donating the transportation of the boulders. NDOT is donating traffic control for the project.
IVCBA says private donations have been a key funding source through the Incline Tahoe Foundation and that it is still seeking $30,000 for the project.
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – On Monday morning, April 27, South Lake Tahoe police and fire crews responded to an incident that left a Subaru Hatchback in the shallows of Lake Tahoe near Timber Cove Beach.
“Sounds like it was an honest mistake,” said Sergeant Matt Morrison with the South Lake Tahoe Police Department (STLPD). “Somehow the gentleman’s car was not in park which caused it to roll into the lake.”
Stuart Bogle, Firefighter Paramedic at South Lake Tahoe Fire Rescue, waded out to the vehicle to hook it up to a tow line before a tow truck fished the Subaru out of the water.
No injuries were reported.
A Subaru Hatchback rolled into Lake Tahoe Monday morningProvided/South Lake Tahoe Fire
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — The Tahoe Chamber is proud to highlight a dynamic group of local businesses leading the way in sustainability, stewardship, and community impact at this year’s Go Local Business Expo, taking place on May 7, 2026, from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the Tahoe Blue Event Center.
The Go Local Business Expo is more than just a networking event, it’s a celebration of the entrepreneurs, innovators, and changemakers shaping the future of the Lake Tahoe region. This year’s spotlight shines on Chamber Members who are not only excelling in their industries but are also prioritizing environmentally conscious practices and meaningful community partnerships.
Eco-Friendly Innovation with Clearly Tahoe
Clearly TahoeProvided
Few experiences capture the beauty of Lake Tahoe quite like seeing straight through its crystal-clear waters; and that’s exactly what Clearly Tahoe delivers. Known for their iconic transparent kayaks and paddleboards, this local business creates unforgettable outdoor adventures while maintaining a strong commitment to preserving the lake’s natural clarity.
By promoting low-impact recreation and environmental awareness, Clearly Tahoe encourages both locals and visitors to appreciate and protect Tahoe’s fragile ecosystem.
Waste Reduction in Action with Tahoe Food Hub
Sustainability starts with what’s on our plate. Tahoe Food Hub is leading the charge in reducing food waste while strengthening the local food system. By connecting regional farms with the community, they ensure fresh, locally sourced food doesn’t go to waste.
Their programs support farmers, reduce environmental impact, and provide access to healthy food, making them a cornerstone of Tahoe’s sustainable future.
Stewardship Through Partnerships with Tahoe Rim Trail Association
Tahoe Rim TrailProvided
Collaboration is key to protecting Tahoe’s natural spaces. The Tahoe Rim Trail Association works hand-in-hand with businesses, volunteers, and environmental organizations to maintain and enhance one of the region’s most treasured outdoor assets.
Their efforts go beyond trail maintenance; they foster a culture of stewardship, encouraging businesses and individuals alike to invest in preserving the landscapes that make Tahoe so special.
Leading the Way in Sustainable Commerce with Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority
Visit Lake TahoeProvided
The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority plays a vital role in positioning the South Shore as a leader in sustainable tourism and commerce. As an active member of the Destination Stewardship Council, they work in tandem with organizations around the lake to ensure messaging is clear and timely.
Through thoughtful campaigns and partnerships, they promote responsible travel, support local businesses, and help ensure that economic growth aligns with environmental preservation.
Why It Matters
The Chamber Members attending the Go Local Business Expo aren’t just participating; they’re setting the standard. By prioritizing sustainability, community collaboration, and innovation, they’re helping shape a stronger, more resilient local economy.
When you support these organizations, you’re investing in the future of Lake Tahoe.
Don’t Miss It
The Go Local Business Expo is back on May 7th from 5 – 8 p.m at the Tahoe Blue Event Center! Tickets are on sale now! Come meet these incredible businesses in person, discover new local favorites, and be part of a community that values both commerce and conservation. Grab your tickets today: https://www.universe.com/events/go-local-business-expo-tickets-9M2PVR.
The Tahoe TAP podcast returns with its ongoing focus on the Things, Adventures, and People shaping life in the Sierra. Hosts Mike Peron and Rob Galloway are back behind the mic, delivering the latest stories and perspectives from across the Tahoe Basin — and this week’s episode zeroes in on the region’s economic future.
At a pivotal moment for the organization, the show features Sarah Schmidt, Executive Director of the Tahoe Prosperity Center, as she approaches her one-year anniversary in the role. Schmidt is also preparing to lead the organization’s flagship event, the Tahoe Economic Summit, for the first time on May 7.
Sarah Schmidt brings over 20 years of experience in sustainable community development, having led programs around the world to advance economic resilience, environmental stewardship, and inclusive growth. She has managed multimillion-dollar initiatives for USAID and other global partners, with a focus on workforce development, climate adaptation, and regional planning.
A skilled facilitator and systems thinker, Sarah is known for aligning diverse stakeholders and helping communities turn strategy into action. Now based in South Lake Tahoe, she brings that global perspective home to support local prosperity.
Sarah lives in South Lake Tahoe with her husband, two children, and two cats. She enjoys biking, swimming in the lake, and supporting the local businesses that make Tahoe so unique
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The South Lake Tahoe Moose Lodge #1632 and the Women of the Moose Chapter 408 served as the Adopt A Day of Nourishment (AAD) sponsors for Bread & Broth Monday Meal on April 20th. Members of the Moose Lodge are part of a fraternal organization whose members celebrate life together, serve those within their community, and support children in need.
By hosting a Bread & Broth Monday Meal, Moose Lodge members helped Bread & Broth serve a hot, nutritious dinner to men, women, and children who came to St. Theresea Grace Hall. Guests were able to enjoy a free, restaurant-quality meal and share the dining experience in a safe, warm, and welcoming environment.
Patty Winberg, Leslie McGuire, Angie Keil, Kathy Booker, Pat Frega.Provided
Pat Frega, a member of SLT Moose Lodge #1632 and a Bread & Broth Monday Meal volunteer, organized the Moose’s Adopt A Day sponsorship and participated in the sponsorship meal along with Women of the Moose members Kathy Booker, Angie Keil, Leslie McGuire, and Patty Winberg. The SLT Moose Lodge and the Women of the Moose has been supporting the Monday Meal annually since their first AAD sponsorship in 2018.
The local Moose Lodge is known for its fun-loving and mutually supportive members. True to their reputation, the Moose Lodge members brought their smiles and caring concern as they joined with the Bread & Broth volunteers to welcome the 130 dinner guests by serving them baked chicken, baked beans, and a broccoli & cauliflower casserole, and providing them with bags of healthy food for meals later in the week. Knowing that you are a part of providing a hot, full-course meal and bags of food for very appreciative recipients is a very moving and rewarding experience.
After being on the serving line, Leslie shared, “what made me happy was to see people did not need to eat alone.” Because Bread & Broth Monday Meal occurs weekly, many dinner guests attend regularly and form relationships with other diners, making the meal a relaxing and social experience for all.
Patty was impressed that the late afternoon meal ‘went really smoothly” and Leslie’s positive experience left her “happy to come again.” Bread & Broth always looks forward to the Moose Lodge’s annual Adopt A Day sponsorship and values the help and positiveness they bring to volunteering and their interactions with the dinner guests.
For more information on Adopt A Day of Nourishment sponsorships, donating, or volunteering, visit www.breadandbroth.org.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – The Golf Courses at Incline Village® announced opening dates for the 2026 golf season. The Incline Village Championship Golf Course will open on Friday, May 8, while the Incline Village Mountain Golf Course is expected to open on Friday, May 15, conditions permitting.
Typically, the Mountain Course opens a bit later than the Championship Course due to the extra maintenance required for the higher-elevation course. (With a top elevation of 7,025 feet above sea level, the Mountain Course is the highest-elevation golf course in the Lake Tahoe Basin and the entire state of Nevada.)
The Grille at The Chateau – the restaurant inside the Championship Course clubhouse – opens May 8 and continues operations throughout the Championship Course’s operating season for lunch and happy hour daily, plus dinner on select evenings.
All pieces in this collection were inspired by the Sierra Nevadas Provided/Bridget Giroux Design
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – For centuries, the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains and its stunning landscapes have inspired painters, sculptors, songwriters, and artists alike. It was no different for interior designer Bridget Giroux as she was designing five pieces of furniture.
After living in Chicago for over 13 years, eight of those years spent working under Holly Hunt, industry leader in interior design, Giroux then worked for a retail brand, developing textiles and wallpaper before she found herself making the big move to Tahoe with her husband.
“We were just feeling burnt out of city life,” said Giroux. “It was quite the life change from living in downtown Chicago to moving to Tahoe.” Giroux then saw the opportunity for an interior design studio in the area, and she seized it. “That’s when I pivoted from designing products interior designers were using to actually having my own firm.”
A family-owned and operated business, Giroux teamed up with her mom, Bridget Crowe, and the mother-daughter pair runs the Bridget Giroux Design firm while her dad, CFO, does the books and the business side.
Bridget Crowe and Bridget Giroux, the mother-daughter duo at Bridget Giroux Design Provided/Bridget Giroux Design
Fast forward nearly five years, and Bridget Giroux Design has developed countless custom pieces, such as side tables, beds, and sofas – all while Giroux does what she loves to do most, create products. Most recently, they have turned their custom pieces into a collection that can be used in their own projects while also providing collection pieces to other interior designers.
The design studio’s newest capsule features five distinct silhouettes, or styles, of side and drink tables. All are handcrafted in collaboration with a Reno-based woodworker and a Truckee-based metalsmith. Influenced by the beauty found in Tahoe’s nature, the collection’s designs reflect five years worth of inspiration living year-round in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
“I think as an artist, for me it was an opportunity to go inward, really hone my craft and figure out what’s important to me,” said Giroux as she touched on the slower, quieter pace of life in a place like Lake Tahoe.
All of the wood is reclaimed from the Sierra Nevadas with an emphasis on the Tahoe National Forest. The pieces are hand-carved, hand-shaped, hand-whittled, and hand-lathed.
The five styles are:
Zephyr Side Table
“Inspired by stacked Tahoe shoreline stones, this sculptural table pairs shou sugi ban–charred reclaimed pine with blackened steel and a redwood top finished with a brass bowtie inlay.”
The Zephyr Side TableProvided/Bridget Giroux Design
The idea for the “Zephyr” design came to Giroux as she was sitting on a beach in Incline with her toddler, stacking rocks. The metal base was manufactured in Truckee, followed by abstract rock shapes created by Giroux’s Reno-based woodworker. The shapes were stacked onto a metal rod welded into the base.
“We did this unusually shaped top to top it off,” said Giroux. The wood, sugarpine and redwood, is charred with a technique called Shou Sugi Ban which consists of thoughtfully burning the wood to create a patina which also helps to emphasize the grain of the wood.
Tallac Side Table
“The Tallac Side Table features a carved walnut top and hand-whittled juniper legs from the Eastern Sierra, secured with brass wedges.”
The Tallac Side TableProvided/Bridget Giroux Design
After Giroux acquired a vintage, three-legged stool on her travels last year, she fell in love with the idea of a three-legged stool. “It had this nod to yesteryear in a way,” she said. Built with beautiful juniper branches, this stool highlights the charming, rustic nature of Tahoe’s high alpine forests.
Carson Side Table
“Made from wood sourced near Sierraville, this charred pine side table has beautifully hand carved legs and a dramatic, deeply textured shou sugi ban finish, accented by a signature brass bowtie inlay.”
The Carson Side TableProvided/Bridget Giroux Design
“To me, the shou sugi ban technique speaks really profoundly to this region. When you’re driving down Mt. Rose, you can’t ignore the scars that we’ve had from past fires, and living with that is a very prominent reality.”
Rubicon Side Table
“A sculptural reclaimed pine stump from the Tahoe National Forest, hand-carved to evoke the movement of wind and water and finished with a brass bowtie inlay and discreet metal casters.”
The Rubicon Side TableProvided/Bridget Giroux Design
Martis Drink Table
“Featuring a hand-turned walnut burl base sourced from a historic Yosemite orchard, the Martis Drink Table pairs richly figured wood with a hand- hammered steel stem and a live-edge English walnut top.”
The Martis Drink TableProvided/Bridget Giroux Design
Inspiration for this piece came to her as she was looking for her own drink table and struggled to find one she really liked.
“We decided to launch with these five pieces because to us, it’s an amuse-bouche, a tasting of what’s to come on a bigger scale, but I think the side and drink tables are a nice category because you can always find a spot for them in your home,” said Giroux. “Every little detail, not only in the silhouettes but also the way that we approach how we treated the wood, was very much inspired by experiencing the land here.”
Pieces in this collection range from $2000 to $5000, and offer a unique quality and style unlike anything else, blending functionality and collectible design. “When you experience these pieces first-hand, they have such a good energy to them. The wood is so beautiful and you can feel the hours they were carved.”
Giroux’s designs are also made with sustainability in mind as she touched on the rising numbers of mass-produced and cheaply-made furniture finding their way into landfills, taking up 12.1 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
“For me, it’s not really about the money. If I can encourage one person to find a badass, vintage sofa on Craigslist for free, send it to the local upholstery shop and spend $2000 to have this incredible piece that no one else is going to have – if I can influence them to do that versus buying another mass-produced piece that in a few years is going to be in the landfill, I would. That to me is what it’s all about.”
To view the collection, make an appointment with Bridget Giroux Design by emailing bridget@bridgetgiroux.com, or calling (415) 710-7014. Deliveries to anywhere in the Tahoe Basin are free.
Bridget Giroux Design is located at 907 Tahoe Blvd, Suite 12 in Incline Village, Nev.
Florals for Bridget Giroux Design’s furniture capsule launch party were done by Catalina Lavalle at Believe In RecessProvided/Bridget Giroux Design
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The inaugural VanWood festival hosted by the Boys and Girls Club of Lake Tahoe, in partnership with Kirkwood Mountain Resort and Epic Promise, took place this April and brought with it one of the biggest spring snowstorms of the season.
Over the three-day weekend, more than 42 inches of snow fell on Kirkwood. What could have created major logistical challenges ended up defining the weekend in the best way, with deep powder riding, indoor events, and a community of campers that were fully in it from start to finish.
VanWood was designed as the spring camping experience, giving attendees (and their dogs) a rare chance to camp overnight at Kirkwood and spend the weekend moving between the slopes, camp, and events. More than just a festival, VanWood was built as a community-driven experience centered around the mountain and a shared commitment to supporting local youth.
Skiing and snowboarding took center stage while morning yoga, coffee chats, aprés DJ sets, live music, and community gathering spaces carried the festivities into the evenings. Saturday afternoon was the highlight of the weekend, with attendees enjoying unlimited tastings from regional breweries at the VanWood mini Tahoe Brewfest while Scott Pemberton O Theory and special guest musician Cliff Porter of Jelly Bread delivered an incredible performance that had Red Cliffs Lodge packed and the energy high.
Scott Pemberton O Theory and special guest musician Cliff Porter of Jelly Bread delivered an incredible performance.Provided
If you missed the event but want to try the official VanWood beer, Sunset Shred, crafted in collaboration with Kirkwood Mountain Resort executives and Cold Water Brewery, made its official tap debut at Cold Water Brewery on Wednesday, April 22. Pints of Sunset Shred are $5 during happy hour, with 20% off appetizers at the bar. $2 from every pour of Sunset Shred that day goes directly to the Boys and Girls Club of Lake Tahoe.
A special thanks to everyone who helped make this event a reality: Kirkwood’s amazing team, The Alpine Community Fund, TWC, Embarc, Cold Water Brewery, Paddle House, Bare Roots, On Course Events, The Cornice staff, Red Cliffs Lodge staff, Kirkwood parking staff, 7800 Bar, 2 Towns Cider, Aleworx, Dust Bowl Brewing, Pigeon Head, Sidellis, South Lake Brewing Company, South of North, Tahoe Brew House, Ricky Newberry, Greg Kiskinen, Rob Guistina, Ryan Kronenburg, Ryan Palmer, Gabe Gavilanes, and Mike Adlard. For a first-year event, the response was clear: VanWood has established a strong foundation with significant potential for growth.
VanWood raised over $18,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of Lake Tahoe in its very first year, with final totals still being counted. At the heart of it all are the kids BGCLT serves and this weekend proved that the Tahoe community shows up for them.
The Boys & Girls Club of Lake Tahoe looks forward to welcoming the community back to Kirkwood Mountain in 2027.
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – South Tahoe High School celebrated 66 of its seniors on Tuesday, April 21 with the annual scholarship night: an evening filled with gratitude and gifts.
Over 220 scholarships were given out, as the South Tahoe and El Dorado Community once again stepped up to support the dreams and future endeavors of our students with over $300,000 in scholarships. With 58 different donors made up of community members, businesses, service organizations, and foundations, the generosity of our amazing community was seen.
More than $300,000 in scholarships were given out. Provided / EDCF
“Thank you to all scholarship donors … our students felt their value in the time and energy you put into creating applications, reading applications, and giving out and presenting funds year after year,” a press release from the El Dorado Community Foundation said.
Here is a list of the scholarships and the recipients for the graduating class of 2026:
2025-2026 Scholarship Recipients
A Student who Serves: Maite Perez Lopez
AspireKids: Lupita Rehn
Assistance League of Sierra Foothills: Ava Galli
Barton Health: Alyssa Strauss & Janet Rios Gomez, Diem Johnson
Barton Health: Dan Kerr Diem Johnson
BOB HICKMAN MEMORIAL Scholarship for Bijou Alumni: Jaden Bingham, Sebastian Guerrero, Ayla Truscott, Philip Huynh
Deputy Sheriff’s Association Scholarship: Emily Earl, Emiliano Guerrero, Landon Brown
Ed Cook Tree Service Industrial Arts AUTO: Oscar Reyes, Josiah Beran; CONSTRUCTION: Sally Monroe, Wyatt Harlow
Elks Club of Placerville #1712: Ava Galli
Fannan Fellowship: Arya Saini & Emiliano Guerrero, Cameron Irwin, Connor Habicht, Ava Galli, Lupita Rehn, Phillip Huynh, Brody DeFranco, Sebastian Guerrero, Diem Johnson
Friends of Kevin Sullivan & Todd Fields Spreading Kindness: Brody DeFranco & Ava Galli
Gary Haase Memorial Parker Bryant
Giving Circle (EDCF): Arya Saini, Ava Galli, Hannah Fishbaugher, Phillip Huynh, Lyla Landy
Hazel & Robert Combellack Diem Johnson
HERO: Diem Johnson, Gabby Lancelotti, Sally Monroe, Hanna Boeser, Bryson Farokhpour, Janet Gomez Rios, Alyssa Straus, Rachel Murphy, Alicia Manning
Jake Roe Memorial: Stuward Sagastume
Jo Jo & Jay Memorial: Lupita Rehn
Kiwanis Club of Lake Tahoe: Bob Baunhauser: Kalina Bonev, Haley Boring, Phillip Huynh, Logan Kelso, Aeson Luckert, Kayden Morales, Desiree Tumbaga; Jaden Bingham, Ris Goralski, Michaela Irvin, Simon Stafford, Alyssa Strauss, Ava Galli, Issy Giunta, Connor Habicht, Hanna Boeser, Natalie Ramirez, Ayla Truscott; Tasanee Kinnett, Lyla Landy, Lupita Rehn, Arya Saini, Lisaa Schumacher; Emiliano Guerrero, Sebastian Guerrero, Cameron Irwin
Kyle Thomas Campbell Memorial: Kalina Bonev
Lake Tahoe Marathon: Cameron Irwin, Diem Johnson, Tegan Klem, Maite Perez Lopez, Lupita Rehn, Aeson Walton
Liberty Utilities: Lyla Landy
LTCC David Family: Alice Lilly & Armando Avalon-Lopez
Live Like Giada: Michaela Irvin, Ava Galli, Izzy Giunta, Cameron Irwin, Brody DeFranco, Jasleen Prieto, Hania Boeser, Jaden Bingham, LT Marathon: Lyla Landy; LTCC: Alice Lilly, Dazio Thomas
Lynn B. Lucas Early Education: Gabriella Lancellotti
McCaffrey Education: Emiliano Guerrero, Sebastian Guerrero, Diem Johnson, Arya Saini Alyssa Strauss
Meyers/Magnet School Alumni: Arya Saini
Optimist Club of South Lake Tahoe: Alice Lilly, Lisa Schumacher, Lupita Rehn, Ayla Truscott, Ava Galli, Hannah Fishbaugher, Cameron Irwin, Diem Johnson
Optimist Club: Ben Kunibe Skye Shipley, Arya Saini, Tegan Klem
Optimist Club: Glenn Lucky Soren Valadez Sandwick
PABA (inc. Drake Niven Memorial): Tatum Warren (Drake Niven), Mia Martinez (Theatre), Anthony Zepeda (Music), Tatum Warren (Art)
Pay It Forward Project: Sebastian Guerrero, Emiliano Guerrero, Ava Galli, Diem Johnson, Gabby Lancellotti
Pink Ribbon: Tasanee Kinnett
Sierra-at-Tahoe: Lily Weitzel, Zoe Weitzel, Gabriella Lancellotti, Alice Lilly
Sierra House School Alumni: Hannah Fishbaugher, Armando Avalos Lopez, Diem Johnson
Soroptomist International of South Lake Tahoe: Alice Lilly, Lisa Schumacher, Jaden Bingham, Hania Boeser, Quinn Douglas, Hannah Fishbaugher, Ava Galli, Emiliano Guerrero, Sebastian Guerrero, Phillip Hyunh, Tasanee Kinnett, Lyla Landy, Lupita Rehn, Arya Saini
Soroptimist International of Tahoe Sierra: Kalina Bonev, Hannah Fishbaugher, Jaslene Prieto, Lupita Rehn, Arya Saini
Soroptimist of Tahoe Sierra – Trade School: Kaitlyn Uribe
STAoR: Jaden Bingham, Sebastian Guerrero, Diem Johnson, Tasanee Kinnett, Natalie Ramirez, Lupita Rehn, Brody DeGranco, Eva Griscom, Arya Saini, Ayla Truscott
South Tahoe High Class of ’75 Scholarship Supporting Volunteerism: Desiree Tumbaga
South Tahoe Viking Boosters Graduate Profile: Tegan Klem, Sicilia Salcedo, Michaela Irvin, Izzy Giunta, Tasanee Kinnett, Connor Habicht, Eva Griscom, Haylee Boring, Lupita Rehn, Ayla Truscott, Janet Gomez Rios, Aeson Luckert, Ava Galli, Brody DeFranco, Emiliano Guerrero, Sebastian Guerrero, Arya Saini
Steven M Jones: Kalina Bonev, Quinn Douglas
Tahoe Art League: Manny Arce, Sicilia Salcedo, Natalie Ramirez, Rebecca Davis
Tahoe Arts Project/Perf. Arts: Lisa Schumacher, Arya Saini, Tegan Klem
Tahoe Douglas Rotary Trade School: Manny Arce
Tahoe Reel Power and Paddle: Izzy Giunta, Jackson Letton
Tahoe Learning Haven: Diem Johnson
Tahoe Valley School Alumni: Desiree Tumbaga, Izabella Giunta, Natalie Ramirez, Mia Martinez
TRPA Environmental: Sebastian Guerrero
Valerie N. Smith Memorial: Arya Saina
Veterans Monument: Desiree Tumbaga
223 scholarships totaling $301,000
If anyone is interested in creating a scholarship for STHS students in the future, reach out to Kathy Haven at kathy@eldoradocf.org. They begin the process for 26-27 seniors and scholarships during the summer months.
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – During last year’s final school board meeting, former coach Dawn Caskey alleged that cheer coach Izzy Preston had been found at fault for incidents of intimidation and retaliation. Most notably, Caskey said that Preston had verbally threatened the cheer team and involved her daughter in the formal complaint that she had filed. The Tribune spoke with several sources and reviewed provided information in order to clarify what was substantiated during the district’s investigation.
Izzy Preston told the Tribune that she has been coaching for four years. Two years ago, the cheer team at South Tahoe High School formed a junior varsity team. Dawn Caskey became the junior varsity coach in June 2025 and coached until October 28th, when Principal Justin Zunino informed her that they had “made the decision to go in a different direction moving forward.”
Caskey, Victoria Hemenes and an anonymous parent filed formal complaints about Preston as a coach in September and October of last year, which alleged that Preston had threatened to kill the cheerleaders if they weren’t able to perform well, that she had berated cheerleaders (specifically the JV team) with crass language, failed to communicate with parents and Coach Caskey regarding practices or performances, and did not look after the safety of the cheerleaders.
Several injuries such as a popped shoulder, rolled ankle, exacerbated knee injury, neck injury and concussion occurred during the season. Hemenes told the Tribune that parents were not notified when their child was injured, which an anonymous parent who spoke to the Tribune agreed with. She said Preston did not contact her or direct her to the sports medicine center after her child was injured.
That anonymous parent also alleged that Preston pressured her daughter to perform after her injury and again after her daughter was sick and missed several days of school.
Anonymous parents who had not filed formal complaints told the Tribune that they were not consistently informed about practices or performances, that fliers were dropped during practices, that Preston did not take their children’s health or injuries seriously, and that there was favoritism or unfair treatment, especially for newer cheerleaders.
Caskey told the Tribune that Preston had not considered the judges’ scores for who made the varsity team during team tryouts. The JV team was also told they could not compete together with varsity because there was no space for JV during away games. Hemenes said that parents offered to take children to games on their own, to minimal response.
Both Caskey and other parents also believed they were retaliated against and that their complaints were not kept private. The anonymous parent said her daughter was moved to the back of performances after she filed a complaint, and Caskey said Preston confronted her about a meeting that was supposed to be private between her, Zunino and athletic director Kevin Hennessee. Caskey has maintained that her removal from the JV coaching position was in response to her filing official complaints.
The Tribune reached out to Preston for comments on the allegations, and she provided no comment on any incidents.
Cheerleaders on the varsity team provided comments on their experiences on the team. One said, “Coach Izzy Preston has always prioritized the safety and well-being of our team. She consistently ensured athletes were fully healthy before returning to practice… when I suffered an injury in October, Coach Preston made sure I was completely ready before allowing me to cheer again, even though I begged her to let me cheer.”
Another cheerleader said, “Coach Izzy always makes sure to put our physical safety first… and if she needs to miss a practice, she has communicated that and made proper arrangements for our athletic director to supervise [during scaled back practices with no stunts or tumbling.]”
Several responses also said that Preston was encouraging, inspiring and a key to the team’s success. “I have never experienced her ever speak negatively about me or other teammates,” said one.
On February 24, the district sent a letter in response to the Tribune’s California Public Records Act (CPRA) that said it determined there were no responsive records in response to requests on an investigation into formal complaints submitted about Izzy Preston.
However, according to investigation results summarized to the Tribune by people who filed formal complaints, Preston had substantiated allegations.
The investigations did not find that Preston had a substantiated death threat, but that some of her conduct was unprofessional, including the language she used. It was acknowledged that she had said, “I’m going to kill you” to cheerleaders, but that it wasn’t considered a serious death threat.
Her unprofessional conduct included that she had said, “That stunt looks like sh**,” to cheerleaders, resulting in public humiliation. Evidence also supported that the information shared by Preston to athletes contributed to tension and divisiveness.
However, investigations did not substantiate that Preston disregarded athlete safety.
The investigations also supported displays of unequal treatment towards cheerleaders, but not enough evidence to support favoritism. Hemenes alleged that she has since seen Preston ask varsity cheerleaders to help coach JV.
In addition, some parents are still uncomfortable with filing a formal complaint. They worry their children will experience negative consequences for complaining, or their student-athletes worry they will not be allowed to compete if they speak up.
One parent who had filed a formal complaint told the Tribune, “The district does not have to answer your emails or complaints until you file a formal complaint. I know firsthand because some of my emails were not answered.”
Superintendent and current human resources director Dr. Todd Cutler told the Tribune that any substantiated complaints have corrective action, and that even unsubstantiated complaints are considered when deciding what actions to take. “Unsubstantiated doesn’t mean that they’re lying; it means we couldn’t confirm it via investigation. And we have to make decisions based on evidence,” said Cutler.
“Athletics is risky, but students’ social, physical and emotional safety is something we take seriously,” he continued. “Retaliation is something we look into.”
Cutler welcomed formal complaints to the school, which can be filed at the district office through the Uniform Complaint Procedure.
“That formal complaint was not to get anyone fired, it was to address issues,” said Hemenes. “I want everyone to work together so my cheerleaders can cheer at the high school level in the future. We’re a small town. We need to work together, not against each other.”
Preston gave the Tribune one official comment. “I’m proud of the cheer program and what we’ve built,” she said.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — The North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District (NLTFPD) is reminding residents to properly dispose of expired or unused medications to help prevent accidental poisoning, misuse, and environmental harm.
Keeping old or unused medications in your home can pose serious risks—especially to children, pets, and vulnerable individuals. Improper disposal, such as flushing medications or throwing them in the trash, can also contaminate water supplies and harm wildlife.
Why Proper Disposal Matters
Prevents accidental ingestion by children and pets
Reduces the risk of misuse or drug diversion
Protects local water systems and the environment
Safe Disposal Options
Residents are encouraged to use approved medication take-back programs:
Local drop-off locations, including the Washoe County Sherrif’s Office (WCSO), Incline Substation, which offers a medication disposal box for unused and expired medications Please note: liquids and needles (sharps) are not accepted at this location
National Prescription Drug Take Back events hosted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
Mail-back programs or approved medication disposal kits
If No Take-Back Option Is Available
If you cannot access a take-back site:
Remove medications from their original containers
Mix with undesirable substances (e.g., coffee grounds or cat litter)
Place in a sealed bag or container
Dispose of in household trash
Scratch out personal information on prescription labels
Do not flush medications unless the label specifically instructs you to do so.
A Message from NLTFPD
“Proper medication disposal is a simple but important step in keeping our community safe,” said Fire Chief Sommers. “By taking a few extra minutes to dispose of medications correctly, residents can help prevent accidents and protect both their families and the environment.”
Learn More& Stay Informed
For additional guidance on safe medication disposal, or to find your closest Collection Site, please visit:
In a magical world where every investment decision we make is a good one, we would always want to buy investments when their price is low and sell them when their price is high. Of course, I’ve written about how earning outsized returns by timing the market is shown not to work consistently, based on decades of industry research. But what if there were a disciplined way to do a small version of this—without guessing?
It turns out that you can, in the form of “rebalancing” your portfolio. When you rebalance, by definition you are selling some of the investments in your portfolio that have performed the best for you and using the proceeds to buy more of what has lagged. Here’s a simple example.
Let’s say that you have a classic, balanced 60-40 portfolio consisting of $60,000 of equities and $40,000 of bonds on January 1st. It turns out to be a good year for equities, and by the end of the year that part of your portfolio has grown to $75,000—a 25% increase! Meanwhile, bonds stayed flat, so you still have $40,000 there. Your total portfolio is now worth $115,000, with a 65.2% equity component and a 34.8% bond component.
In order to bring your portfolio back to the intended 60-40 split, you would perform a rebalance. In this case, you would sell $6,000 of equities and buy $6,000 of bonds in order to achieve that balance. You are selling equities, which were your best performers, and buying bonds, which were your worst performers. That amounts to selling high and buying low.
Let’s do a second scenario, again beginning with a desired 60-40 portfolio on January 1st. This time, equities drop 10% to $54,000, while bonds return 10% to $44,000. Your total portfolio is now $98,000, with a 55.1% equity component and a 44.9% bond component.
Once again, you need to rebalance in order to bring your portfolio back to the intended 60-40 split. This time you would sell $4,800 of bonds and buy $4,800 of equities in order to achieve that balance. You are selling bonds, which were your best performers, and buying equities, which were your worst performers. As before, you are effectively selling high and buying low.
Proper rebalancing can improve risk-adjusted performance over time. While I used a simple example, one can rebalance on a more granular level as well. For example, after last year’s extraordinary international equities performance, many investors have a higher portion of their portfolio in international stocks than they intend. The easy fix is to rebalance by reducing international (sell high) and buying U.S. If you are a “sector” investor (I’m not), you might rebalance your technology sector relative to your energy sector.
Rebalancing works best when it’s done on a schedule or tied to thresholds—not based on how you feel about the market. Whatever your individual use case for rebalancing, you can see how you are able to safely implement a small amount of “sell high, buy low” theory into your portfolio. Be aware: in taxable accounts, there may be tax consequences whenever you sell an asset that has changed in value, so tax goals should be considered before rebalancing.
How ever you choose to use take advantage of this strategy, invest smartly and invest well!
Larry Sidney is a Zephyr Cove-based Investment Advisor Representative. Information is found at https://palisadeinvestments.com/ or by calling 775-299-4600 x702. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell securities. Clients may hold positions mentioned in this article. Past Performance does not guarantee future results. Consult your financial advisor before purchasing any security.
For the second time in their two-year existence, the Tahoe Knight Monsters are heading to the playoffs. The hockey team earned the #4 seed in the Mountain Division of the Western Conference of the ECHL and will play the Kansas City Mavericks in the Mountain Division Semi-Finals of the Kelly Cup Playoffs.
“It’s really exciting,” said Brenden Paul, Knight Monsters broadcast and communications manager. “It creates an added buzz around the fan base. We’re looking forward to some bonus hockey in the end of April and the beginning of May.”
The series starts Friday, April 24, in Kansas City, with Tahoe hosting games three through five on April 29, 30, and May 2. In last year’s playoffs, Tahoe swept the Wichita Thunder in the division semis before getting swept by Kansas City in the division finals.
THE KNIGHT MONSTERS DEFENSE will have to be stout to keep the high-scoring Mavericks at bay.
The Mavericks have been a dominating force in the ECHL in recent years, making it to the conference finals last season and to the Kelly Cup finals in 2024. In the 25/26 regular season, they placed first in both the Mountain Division and the entire Western Conference, finishing with a record of 55-12 with 115 total points; ten wins and 15 points more than any team in the conference. Kansas City head coach Tad O’had was named ECHL Coach of the Year, and Marcus Crawford won Defenseman of the Year honors. Crawford also led the league in scoring — the first time in the ECHL’s 38-year history that a defenseman has accomplished the feat.
ICE TIME: The Knight Monsters against the Cincinnati Cyclones in a late-regular season matchup.
With a season record of 35-30 and 77 total points, Tahoe finished ninth in the conference and fourth in the Mountain Division. The team’s record against Kansas City was a less-than-stellar 1-6.
Yet Paul sees a silver lining. “Tahoe is one of the few teams who has been competitive across a series against Kansas City this year. Only one game was lopsided. The record’s not great, but most games went to overtime or were one goal games or there was an empty netter at the end. Tahoe has proven that they can hang with anyone in the league.”
Throughout the season, Mavericks showed a distinct home-ice. To have a shot at winning the series, the underdog Knight Monsters will have to steal one on the road and be stout at home.
UPPING THE ANTE: As intense as any hockey game can be, the home playoff games at Tahoe Blue Events Center will be even more electric. Photos by Jon Grant/Moonshine Ink.
Games three and four will take place at the Taheo Blue Event Center in Stateline Wednesday, April 29, and Thursday, April 30, respectively. If the Knight Monsters are able to extend the best-of-seven series, they will host game five Saturday, May 2, as well. Puck drops at 7 p.m. for all home games.
Tickets are still available but are going fast. See knightmonsterhockey.com for pricing and to purchase.
Paul expects a raucous environment inside the arena. “If you’ve been out to a game in the regular season before, double the energy and the atmosphere,” he said. “It’s nonstop buzz for 60 minutes. It’s electric. The playoffs are just a different brand of hockey.”
Early mornings. Racing from one matchup to the next. The thrill of keeping a swirl of moving pieces right on track, with enough breathing room to soak it all in. You know the drill when it comes to planning a youth sports tournament. You’ve just never seen it like this. The South Shore of Lake turns the whole logistics dance into a dream setting, where the stunning view alone feels like absolute victory.
Imagine pine-fresh air greeting families as they arrive, the deep blue of the lake dazzling in sunlight, and the majestic Sierra peaks towering overhead. No wonder game days feel brighter here. Between matchups, the magic is in the pause: laughter on a stroll, world-class recreation at North America’s largest alpine lake, and core memories in the making for players and families.
What if those early morning warmups led straight into lakeside afternoons? Here, tournaments double as getaways with awe (and then some). Step away from the “what’s next” scramble. Wander, and your next adventure beckons beyond the bend. High spirits feel like an instant classic with stunning vistas, some available right from the roadside, but hiking and biking trails abound. Welcome to your game plan for keeping the trip shimmering right by turquoise pools in a family-friendly playground: smooth, simple, and blissful, from gleeful arrival to the final blow of the whistle.
Game Central: Play It All at These Vibing Venues
Dribbling, spiking, skating. From indoor showdowns to outdoor matchups under sweeping skies and sweet pine, South Lake Tahoe’s sports facilities keep the action rolling, with a splash of Tahoe magic just past the sideline. It’s easy to plan a small or full-scale, multi-sport weekend. These venues? Collegiate-sized hoops, high-school cross courts, and fully convertible arenas built for every spike, slam, and swoosh. Go for tournament logistics that feel effortless, leaving you free to celebrate every epic match-point marvel.
Tahoe Blue Event Center
4,400 seats. The MVP of indoor sports, Tahoe Blue flexes its convertible arena space to host basketball, volleyball, cheer, hockey, wrestling… anything you dream of. Think professional locker rooms, spectator seating, and fan‑friendly spots to rally that make tournament logistics feel effortless — all with postcard-worthy Sierra views you’ll carry with you. Stay here, and you’re right in the heart of downtown, close to all the action.
Tahoe Blue Event Center
Outdoor & Community Facilities
Athletes ready to move. Families here for the fun. Nearby, the new 64,000-square-foot STARS (South Tahoe Recreation & Aquatics Center) brings full-sized courts and gym space for basketball, volleyball, and team practice. Outdoor fields pick up the pace with warmups or extra scrimmages, so multi-sport weekends flow smoothly.
Between games, spots like Bijou Community Park welcome you with open turf for picnic breaks, impromptu soccer kicks, or a little pre- or post-game play under the pines. There’s even a full-on BMX track for the adventurous. Sunlit tennis, pickleball, and high-school gym courts round out flexible spaces that fit right into tournament schedules, helping every player stay active and energized.
STARS (South Tahoe Recreation & Aquatics Center)
Where to Stay: Cozy Game-Day Rooms, Minutes Away
Hop off the bus (or out of your car) and feel that recharge-your-spirit relief: everything is within reach. South Lake Tahoe’s walkable hotel cluster keeps teams and families just steps away from heart-racing match-day buzz. Full-service resorts with pools, spa perks, and lakeside dining. Charming, smaller properties for a short-and-sweet tournament retreat, with quick access to courts and fields. Thankfully, there’s a comfy spot for every squad to kick back and relax.
Planning for larger teams? Total breeze. Groups can split across nearby hotels, where coordinating practice times, breakfast runs, or post-game debriefs feels second nature when it’s blocks away. Families love that everyone can land, unpack, and instantly feel part of the weekend hustle and bustle — whether it’s cheering on with signs from the stands, joining in scenic group activities, or winding down lakeside after a glorious day.
For right-in-the–action access, check out Harrah’s Lake Tahoe (plenty of rooms and amenities in this 18-story tower), Margaritaville Resort Lake Tahoe (family-friendly with spacious rooms, mountainside), or Caesars Republic Lake Tahoe (spread across multiple blocks together for a full weekend tournament), all easy walking distance from the Tahoe Blue Event Center.
Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino Lake Tahoe
Hit the Alpine Road (or Sky) to South Lake Tahoe
Getting to and around South Lake Tahoe is a quick swing in, whether you fly or road trip your way to the Jewel of the Sierra. Fly into Reno-Tahoe International Airport, then grab a shuttle or arrange a private ride straight to the South Shore and arrive ready to own the game. Part of a team driving in from California? You’ll be happy to know paradise has scenic highways that lead directly into town, with room for every ride near the main venues.
Once you get here, find everything just where you need it: courts, fields, hotels, and restaurants all clustered together. Teams and families can move from game to getaway in a flash. Short walks, quick rides, or spontaneous adventures between venues. It’s relaxing to navigate South Lake Tahoe.
What Happens Between Games? Sweet Downtime
Take a post-game nap with a view of this mountain haven. Swap stories over a waterfront breakfast. Share laughs while wandering your hotel. When a stay feels this awesome, your tournament becomes one of those rare, escapade-made weekends. Already counting down to game-day?
Well, South Lake Tahoe is a place to play, and a place to experience. Between games, teams and families can revel in a two-for-one breathtaking natural playground (hello, exhilarating family vacation). On the crystal-clear water (diamonds? No, that’s the sun lighting up Lake Tahoe), beaches call for downtime, paddleboarding adds a splash of friendly competition, and kayaking lets everyone glide across Lake Tahoe’s famous crystal-clear blue waters.
In the idyllic mountains, hiking and biking trails invite spirited adventure, with lake and mountain views that will have everyone snapping their new favorite photos. Catch your breath and savor true awe. These scenic views? Absolutely rejuvenating. Feel the scenery as it refreshes and revives you. For moments when the team wants to take it easy together, explore casual dining spots, family-friendly cafes, and laid-back joys — where everyone can delight in cherished bonding (without over-scheduling).
These in-between moments are just as magnetic as the rush of competition. Sunset paddles. A lush trail hike, full of woodsy wonder. That invigorating meal after a big day on the field. South Lake Tahoe gives the gift of precious time. On the court, off the court, memories this elevated feel extraordinary. Just awestruck.
Planning a trip to Lake Tahoe with kids? This guide is designed to help you find the best family-friendly hotels in South Lake Tahoe, so you can spend less time researching and more time enjoying your vacation. Whether you’re traveling with toddlers, school-age kids, or teens, choosing the right place to stay can make a big difference. Family-oriented hotels often offer conveniences like larger rooms, kid-friendly amenities, pools, easy beach or outdoor access, and activities that keep everyone entertained. From laid-back lakeside properties to resorts near attractions, this page highlights options that make traveling as a family smoother, more comfortable, and a lot more fun.
Top Family-Friendly Resorts (The All-Rounders)
These are the places that really check every box for families, comfortable rooms, thoughtful amenities, and easy access to things to do. If you want a stay where both kids and adults are happy (without constantly leaving the property), these are your best bets.
Marriott Grand Residence Club Lake Tahoe
Marriott Grand Residence Club Lake Tahoe
Located right in Heavenly Village, Marriott Grand Residence Club Lake Tahoe is a go-to for families thanks to its condo-style suites with kitchens, separate living spaces, and walkable access to shops, dining, and the gondola. The pool and on-site amenities make it easy to relax after a full day out. Great for families who want convenience, space, and a central location
Margaritaville Resort Lake Tahoe
Margaritaville Resort Lake Tahoe
A full-suite resort where every room includes a separate living area, with larger options like two-bedroom family suites that can sleep groups comfortably—ideal for families who want space plus a fun, central location near Heavenly Village. Great for families who want resort energy, big suites and walkability.
Best for Space: Hotels with Kitchenettes & Suites
When you’re traveling with babies, toddlers, or even picky eaters, having a kitchen or kitchenette can make all the difference. These South Lake Tahoe properties offer extra space plus essentials like microwaves, fridges, and full kitchens—giving families flexibility for meals, snacks, and downtime.
Forest Suites Resort at Heavenly Village
Forest Suites Resort at the Heavenly Village Lake Tahoe
Known for its large multi-bedroom suites that can accommodate bigger families, this property combines space with a prime walkable location and amenities like pools, hot tubs, and game areas that keep kids entertained. Great for families who want room to spread out and walk everywhere.
Desolation Hotel
Desolation Hotel South Lake Tahoe
A boutique, eco-conscious hotel with a cozy cabin feel, Desolation Hotel offers spacious accommodations, full kitchens, and outdoor areas that give families room to spread out. Its location near the lake and trails makes it ideal for active families who want both comfort and adventure. Great for families who want a quieter, nature-forward stay with modern amenities.
Best for the Budget
Traveling with family doesn’t have to mean overspending, especially in Tahoe. These properties strike a sweet spot by offering suite-style space, family-friendly amenities, and solid value, making them great picks for budget-conscious trips without sacrificing comfort.
Stardust Lodge
Stardust Lodge Lake Tahoe
A longtime family favorite, this lodge offers suite-style rooms with kitchenettes (microwave, fridge, cookware) along with perks like free breakfast, multiple pools, and hot tubs. Its central location near Heavenly Village means you can walk to activities, saving both time and money. Great for families who want maximum value and tons of included amenities.
The Americana Village
Americana Village Lake Tahoe
Known for its cozy, apartment-style suites, this property includes kitchenettes, free breakfast, and family-friendly extras like a playground, pool, and game areas. It’s a quieter, budget-friendly option that still keeps you close to major attractions. Great for families who want affordable comfort, space and kid-friendly extras.
Tip: Budget-friendly hotels in Tahoe often provide the most value through included perks, like breakfast, parking, or kitchenettes, which can save a surprising amount over the course of a family trip.
Best for the Active Family
For families who don’t just want a place to sleep, but a place where kids can play, explore, and stay entertained, these activity-driven resorts are a great fit. From game rooms and kids’ clubs to pools and organized activities, these properties help turn your hotel stay into part of the vacation.
Hilton Vacation Club Lake Tahoe Resort South
Hilton Vacation Club Lake Tahoe Resort South
This resort is built for active families, with a children’s activity program, game room, and activity center offering crafts, movies, and games to keep kids engaged. It also features both indoor and outdoor pools, plus nearby year-round adventures like hiking, skiing, and lake activities, making it easy to stay busy in any season. Great for families who want on-site activities and easy access to outdoor adventure.
Tahoe Beach & Ski Club
Tahoe Beach & Ski Club Lake Tahoe
Located directly on the lake, this resort combines the feel of a vacation rental with resort-style amenities, making it a strong pick for families who want space and easy access to outdoor fun. Guests can enjoy a private sandy beach, year-round heated pool, hot tubs, and on-site activities like volleyball, all just minutes from Heavenly and downtown. Most accommodations are condo-style suites with kitchenettes or full kitchens, giving families the flexibility to cook meals while still enjoying a full resort experience.
It depends on your activities, summer (June–September) is best for beaches, hiking, and water fun, while winter (December–March) is ideal for skiing and snow play. For fewer crowds and good weather, many families love the shoulder seasons (late spring and early fall).
Entering the stadium, I look down on the field and the outfield grass is as green as the color has ever been. The theme from The Natural, Robert Redford’s classic baseball flick of pasts becoming present, reverberates as the players are introduced with a tip of their cap, the boys of summer taking the field for another season in the sun.
With the red, white, and blue bunting lining the outfield fences the scene drips Americana like a hot dog-scented Norman Rockwell. You feel the ghosts of baseball greats — Mickey Mantle and Roberto Clemente are the two names my mind selects — somehow taking it all in and smiling. The coaches and the umps shake hands at home plate like they’ve been doing for more than 150 years and the
game begins.
In the top of the first inning, the Rainiers’ first batter of the season reaches on an error by second baseman
Tommy Troy; in a game as superstitious as baseball it’s not a good omen for the home team, but Aces left-handed flamethrower Kohl Drake bears down and strikes out the second batter. He’s the game’s “K batter,” and his swing-and-miss, per the PA announcer’s echoing voice, means that all draft beers are half price until inning’s end. Though most folks have just sat down, many quickly stand back up and scurry for the nearest concession stand.
BALL OR STRIKE? A Reno Aces batter making the split-second decision to swing or not to swing. Photo by Jon Grant
Drake proceeds to strike out hotshot shortstop Colt Emerson, and then blows one by former San Francisco Giant Connor Joe to strike out the side. In the bottom of the first, Troy makes up for his error by wrapping a sharp single to right and moves to second on LuJames Groover’s walk.
Then strides to the plate a man made for baseball lore — cleanup hitter Luken Baker, all 6’4” 285lbs of him, first baseman, Texas-born, biceps as big as the Babe’s. But Baker quickly shows he’s not all brawn. On a low-and-slow inside curve, though slightly fooled, he keeps his hands back and deftly drops bat-head onto ball, wristing the red-seamed sphere down the left field line for a standup double that scores Troy.
The Aces 1-0 lead holds until the top of the third. With a runner on first, the left-handed hitting Emerson drives an outside fastball over the left-centerfield fence to give the Rainiers a 2-1 lead, the ball nearly hitting the bullseye on the Tahoe Truckee Lumber Company billboard en route to its resting place on the train tracks beyond the stadium.
The jumbotron reacts with a romping closeup of Steve Carell as Michael Scott from the T.V. show The Office. “Nooooooooo!” he shouts in his adult-toddler schtick. “No! No! No! No! No!”
Laughter cleanses the stadium’s palate, and Drake retires the side. The vibes are good — and the Aces rip three hits in their half of the inning, culminated by A.J. Vukovich’s two-out RBI single scorched to center to square the game at two.
Fast forward to the sixth
Cloud-cover has encroached and the Aces find themselves down 4-2. Vukovich starts off the inning by smashing a double deep into the right-centerfield gap, the stadium coming a-roar with chants of “Vuuuuuuu.” A hit batsman, two walks, and an infield single create a rally that scores two runs to retie the game. With the bases still full of Aces, LuJames Groover — the slick-fielding third baseman who already has two hits on the day — connects on a fastball and delivers a shot over the shortstop’s head.
The base hit drives in two, and the crowd is lit like a birthday cake as the Aces take a 6-4 lead. The sun breaks through the clouds, and it seems like the ghosts of Mantle and Clemente have lined up an easy pathway to victory for the home team.
But no.
Baseball will break your heart. Writer and one-time Major League Baseball commissioner Bartlett Giamatti even said, “It’s designed to break your heart.” And so, out of design or whimsey or simple athletic prowess, those darn Rainiers from tepid Tacoma score three dang runs in the top of the seventh to take a 7-6 lead, the clouds returning to dim the sun as sweatshirts are donned and heads shake slowly from side to side.
The home team fails to plate any
runs in their half of the seventh or
the eighth, so we head to the bottom of the ninth with the Aces still
trailing 7-6.
But there’s hope! LuJames leads off the inning with a liner just above a leaping Connor Joe and his outstretched first baseman’s mitt, and Groover is aboard the bag with his fourth hit of the day.
Luken Baker lumbers to the batter’s box and the crowd roars. The big man already has two big hits — and everyone’s hoping he’ll send us home happy with a walk-off homer. But Luken gets down in the count and then watches a hissing fastball streak by on the outside, the ump raising his arm to the sky to indicate that it caught the corner for strike three.
But it’s okay, it’s all good. Vukovich is up next, and the crowd incants its “Vuuuuuuuu” to spur him on. Still, the Rainiers’ closer makes him look foolish and gets two quick strikes. Us fans are on our feet, all manner of rally caps being worn backward and sideways and inside-out in hopes of appeasing the ghosts of Mantle and Clemente into gifting us a groundball with eyes or a little bloop that finds safe haven in that green outfield grass.
But Vukovich chases a curveball in the dirt for strike three, and the Aces are down to their last out.
If we were in Mudville watching the Nine, it would be time for Casey at the Bat. Alas, we’re not in a great American poem from 1888 but rather a real-life game in 2026, so it’s Kristian at the Bat; Kristian Robinson, from Nassau, the Bahaman with number 59 on his back now number one in our hearts. “Let’s go, Kristian! … Come on, Kristian!” He stands tall in the box, bat held strong as he works the count to three balls and a strike.
LuJames leads off first base. Kristian gets a pitch to hit. He swings! He connects! A hard-hit line drive rocketed to right. It’ll get LuJames to third and heck he might even score …
But the game will break your heart. It’s designed to break your heart. The Rainiers’ right fielder charges in on swift feet and extends a long arm, the leather of his glove snagging the sinking liner in its web to record Reno’s 27th and final out.
The stadium exhales a sigh that is a groan, and the game is over.
Us fans pick up our things and head for the exits. But before we leave, we turn, back around to the diamond, to the green of all that outfield grass. It was a beautiful day at the ballpark, and we know it. And Mantle and Clemente nod down from above, and another season of baseball has come back to us, as it has for so long, once more.
On essay days in Craig Rowe’s classroom at Truckee High School, the rules are simple: nothing written at home.
Students open their school-issued Chromebooks, log into Google Docs, and begin typing. Rowe can see who made changes, what they changed, and when. If the document has a timestamp of 11:42 p.m. on a Thursday night, he knows rules were broken.
“Here’s something you don’t hear from a teacher,” Rowe tells his students. “I do not want you to do this for homework.”
Just a few years ago, take-home essays were standard practice in English classes. Now, Rowe — who describes himself as an “old-school English teacher” — has moved much of his writing into the classroom, not because he suddenly believes homework is ineffective, but because of artificial intelligence.
Programs like ChatGPT and Google Gemini can now generate a competent five-paragraph essay in seconds. They can brainstorm topics, build outlines, write introductions, and edit rough drafts. And while school networks may block these tools, most students carry a smartphone or have a personal laptop that can access them without restriction.
In the Tahoe/Truckee schools, as in schools across the country, the question is no longer whether students will use artificial intelligence. The question is how schools can preserve learning in a world where the work students are asked to do can now be done by a machine.
Administration: Guardrails
At the helm of Tahoe Truckee Unified School District’s Technological Services is Ed Hilton. The department’s motto is Where Students Master Technology for Their Future.
“We’ve got to prepare our students for college, career, and life, and technology is one of those things in every career,”Hilton said. “So, ultimately we’re supporting our kids and using those tools that they’ll be expected to use when they move on from Tahoe Truckee.”
One of those specific tools is AI. “After ChatGPT came on the scene in 2023 we decided to test out some tools, especially in Google workspace. We use some productivity tools,” he said. “And I guess what we’re still concerned about is employees using tools that we haven’t vetted. Especially right as things came out, we did a lot of employee training, like to not upload student info so AI is not training on student info.”
Hilton estimates that in their Google and other curriculum tools, “about 1/3 use some sort of AI in the background.”
DISTRACTIONS DISTRACTIONS: Though cell phones are no longer allowed on a student’s person during classtime at many local schools, the constant distraction of the screen — even by school-issued laptops — is noted by both educators and students. Illustrations by Sarah Miller/Moonshine Ink
He was quick to make a distinction on AI: “If you’re talking about up-font AI-use like ChatGPT, it’s just the staff. Students can’t go to ChatGPT or Google Gemini. Only staff have access.”
Each student at TTUSD is given a Chromebook, which is a streamlined laptop running Google Chrome OS, for school use from kindergarten through the senior year of high school. Kids in younger grades leave the laptops at school, older students take them home for homework, the transition happening in middle school. While on their Chromebooks, or while utilizing a school’s Wi-Fi network, up-front AI tools and a variety of websites are blocked.
Yet many students, especially in high school, have their own laptops as well. When not on school Wi-Fi, these computers (not to mention the smart-phone in most middle school and high schoolers’ pockets) have no restrictions on any AI tool or website.
Hilton acknowledged this, and that students utilizing “front end AI” has been problematic.
“As far as academic honesty, teachers are having those conversations,” he said, noting that the district has just finished a draft of its AI policy, which has been in the works since October with input from three public meetings between administrators, staff, and parents, that Hilton believes will be ratified before the end of the school year. “But we are not going to put our head in the sand. AI is definitely part of the students’ future.”
Hilton repeatedly noted that any use of AI in the district has to be “secure” and “safe.” He pushed on the need for transparency and visibility of how students are using it, and averred that there must be guardrails in place that would, essentially, allow students to use some AI tools for schoolwork, but not all of them.
“Any tool should have some sort of scaffolding to students,” he said. “In that, you don’t get the race car right away, we teach you to drive first.”
TTUSD administrators and educators are watching how the test drive goes in another Placer County school. (Though TTUSD spans three counties, the district is under Placer jurisdiction.) Rocklin Unified has, in Hilton’s term, “deployed” more front-end school-wide AI tools, namely Google Gemini, into their curriculum — okayed and even encouraged for classroom and schoolwide use.
“Our students will use AI in their jobs. But it’s come so quickly — the use, the integration and all the different things,” Hilton said. “We want to make sure we are doing it correctly. The question isn’t are we using it or not, but is it beneficial or not? If we come up with educators who say it’s not beneficial, we won’t use it. But putting our head in sand and saying AI doesn’t exist is not valuable either.”
Teachers: Protect the Learning Process
While Rowe assiduously protects students’ writing process from AI, he is also working on ways to implement the newly evolving tech tools.
THING OF THE PAST: Like the disappearance of chalkboards in the 1990s and 2000s, education is seeing pens, paper, and take-home essays become bygone tools as it enters its AI frontier. File image
“What’s the role of AI in classrooms?” he asked rhetorically. “I think there is one. But the balance of where and when to use them is a work in progress with educators, myself included.”
Rowe’s approach depends on his classes, from AP Language and AP Literature courses to his communications class. In the latter, for instance, student presentations are a large part of the curriculum. He not only okays AI-use for aspects of these, but encourages it. “AI tools are really great for research,” he said, noting an example of a student looking into the difference between engineering programs at various colleges, and how just a few years ago the research could “take days” but “now it’s one query.”
He finds a boon in using AI-generated graphics as well. “I feel like for project-based stuff and visuals, AI has some really cool tools. If someone is giving a mini Shark Tank style presentation in my communications class, I encourage them to use AI for their visuals. In the past, students may not have had much for visual aids, and now it’s almost professional level visuals and art.”
While striving to keep ideation and writing a human-powered endeavor, Rowe does see educational benefit from AI’s use on “the back end” of essay-writing. He talks of a student who had a near-final draft of her paper but wasn’t sure if her tone was coming through as intended. The student, Rowe said, “plugged it into AI, into Gemini, and asked if the tone she had intended to use was the tone that came through.” The feedback the student received, per Rowe, was useful.
But as for writing, Rowe is wary of AI taking over too much of the critical thinking and drafting that has always been vital to the creation of an essay.
“I’ve definitely had my days when I’m grading, and I’ll read something that is just so obvious AI, and it’s depressing quite frankly,” Rowe said. “My initial reaction is that, ‘yeah we have to lock ’em down and just handwrite everything.’ And then I calm down and ask myself, “What is our mission?’” He answers his own question with: “It’s not for students to get a good grade in my class but to prepare our young people to be contributors in society.”
Rowe returned to the need for balance, and the importance for discussion. “Everyone is navigating their way through it,” he said. “This is classic where the technology is way out in front of the policies and the teaching methods.”
“The kids,” he concluded, “are adapting to AI really quickly. Much quicker than the educators and the school policies.”
Laurie Cussen, who teaches history and social studies courses at Truckee High, believes in not shortcutting the learning process. “AI is a tool for productivity once you’re out of education [and into the workforce],” she said. “That makes sense, but the learning has to happen before.”
She makes an apt comparison: “My first grader is a perfect example. He is learning arithmetic, addition, and subtraction. We’ve had calculators forever that could do that for him. But it is so much better for his neuropathways for him to do it himself — to learn how to do it himself.”
“We are in neuropathway building,” she said of herself and her fellow teachers. “We need to protect the productive struggle.”
Cussen gave another analogy: As a wrestler becomes a better wrestler through the struggle of wrestling, learners become better learners through the struggle of learning. Though she acknowledges using AI in some of her own lesson planning, she “shies away” from using AI in her classroom “because it is such a convenient shortcut.”
Illustration by Sarah Miller/Moonshine Ink
However, she does see a benefit for students to use AI as “a clarifier of concepts,” going as far as instructing her students to use AI at home to make practice quizzes, referring to it as “as a study companion.”
As for class time, Cussen echoed Mr. Rowe’s sentiments. “[AI] can do any assignment we do in class,” she said, lamenting that the school “is seeing a lot of stuff turned in that is purely done by AI.”
“If you want to ensure that the work is purely student generated, all the work has to be done in the classroom. If you let it go home, you know it’s not all student work.”
“I see class time as preserving the productive struggle, not giving students the cognitive offramp,” Cussen continued. “Protect the space of learning in class, then when you go home, use AI.”
The soft skills of communication, collaboration, problem solving, teamwork, and critical thinking must remain at the core of curriculum, she said. AI proficiency, on the other hand, she observed, can be coached in shorter time spans, through short-courses or future employees, down the road. “Learning the soft skills in school is vital,” she emphasized.
Students: The Reality
Kate and Maria are juniors in AP courses at Truckee High. They have been in TTUSD schools since their elementary school days, and they say this year has been their most academically rigorous thus far. They both want to go to college, with some big names in education on their lists of desired schools. Both are taking an AP-heavy courseload. To protect their privacy, their names have been changed.
Both agreed that a difference regarding AI in this school year is “the teachers are more on edge about it in general.” The students spoke about the restrictions regarding AI-use on tests and certain assignments when on school Wi-Fi and Chromebooks.
“But for online homework, there are no restrictions like that,” Kate said. Both she and Maria have their own personal laptops. They said teachers sometimes do encourage or even instruct homework assignments to be completed with AI. Other times, students simply opt to use it.
“I do think sometimes it’s beneficial to use Chat GPT or Gemini because it can help answer questions you don’t know,” Maria said. “Let’s say there was a formula in math that I can’t remember, it can help me. It’s nice to have a website like Chat GPT you can trust to explain it to you step by step.”
The students echoed the idea of the AI study companion.
“Chat GPT for me is really useful for studying for tests because some teachers don’t give study guides,” Kate said, saying that she copies and pastes content from her Google Classroom page into one of the programs to have the AI generate, for instance, “flash cards for unit three of [class].”
When asked, in their view, if they had ever overstepped the ethical bounds of AI-use on an assignment, Maria answered, “Honestly, not really.” Both described how passing AP tests to receive the valuable college credits means that the student actually has to learn the material. (One cannot use AI tools on the test, for instance.) The two juniors also spoke to a genuine desire to learn for learning’s sake.
Maria stated that she did not use AI before she started taking AP classes. “I think learning has definitely changed a lot,” she said.
Still, similar to what their teachers and administrators have noticed, Kate and Maria also see some students finding workarounds and overly relying on AI, using it, in some cases, to complete the entirety, or the near-entirety, of an assignment.
“I definitely think kids are getting stupider from using it too much,” Kate said.
But both do not blame their peers for the overuse. “It’s just so accessible to just search up the answer if you don’t have time,” Kate said.
As for writing, the juniors find AI to be a key tool. “Honestly, writing is more like a first draft, not editing,” Kate said. ‘If I feel like I need editing, I’ll run it through Chat GPT.”
She usually writes out “one to two drafts” on her own before (and if) she seeks AI editing.
When a human-written draft is “run through” an AI program for editing, per the detection software turnitin.app, it is more difficult to catch than if the draft was initially generated by AI. Further hindrances to detection arise when an AI-generated first draft is edited by a human, when there is mixed AI-human authorship; or when content is too short to provide sufficient linguistic data, i.e., a paragraph-length piece rather than an essay-length.
Kate and Maria also noted using AI as a writing tutor on their essays for the “little things you can use ChatGPT for, like topic points or information … how do I format it …what facts do I put in … to see if I need a smoother transition on this” … “When I have no idea what to write about” and to “put it in and see how it’s going to grade me.”
When the students were asked if they work harder or less hard when they use an AI program like ChatGPT on their schoolwork, the students said: “Definitely less effort because it gives you the exact answer.”
How to not be tempted to use AI or other digital technology? Get rid of the screen.
“In my history class where there’s lectures, you can ask questions while you go over the information and take notes,” Maria said. “You don’t have any technology out, and you’re totally focused on the teacher and what they’re saying. I think that’s more impactful, the lecture and taking notes with pen and paper. Way more beneficial for sure. A lot of times when I take notes on my computer, I get sidetracked and open different tabs. When it’s pen and paper, I don’t have that excuse.”
EDUCATION FINDS ITSELF entering an AI landscape where the unknowns outweigh the knowns and where protecting the productive struggle of learning has become paramount. File image
Nevada: The Transplant and the Chatbot
In North Lake Tahoe, Incline Village schools fall under the Washoe County School District. I spoke with an early-grade elementary school teacher who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal. She moved to the district from a state where, she said, schools were moving away from classroom technology. In Nevada, she found the opposite. “All curriculum is online,” she said of her classes. Even when she reads a book aloud, the students no longer gather around a physical copy with pages that she fans while teaching; the book is displayed on a screen.
She acknowledged that not all studies show classroom technology to improve learning outcomes, but in her new district, its use is expanding rather than shrinking. She broached how her school has “just implemented an app for kids to do their reading homework on instead of them reading books and completing a reading log.”
The app is called Paloma. Per its LinkedIn page, the company “is a venture-backed edtech startup that harnesses AI to unleash parents’ untapped teaching potential.” In short, Paloma’s AI generates personalized books aligned to what it knows about a student’s learning needs and personal/familial interests, and texts the student’s family a daily tutoring lesson plan.
“A few parents have actually complained since they do not want their child on technology,” the teacher said.
When I was unable to reach administrators at Incline High School, I turned to the district’s website, where I found something no other Tahoe/Truckee area school site had: an AI assistant. The chatbot introduces itself in writing: “Hi, I’m Ask your WCSD AI Assistant. How can I help you today?”
I asked it a simple question: Do Incline High students use AI?
The response began: “The Washoe County School District acknowledges that AI is rapidly reshaping education and can be a powerful tool for expanding learning.” The answer went on for several paragraphs, outlining both benefits and drawbacks, and included a statement that the district had established a framework “that ensures AI is used responsibly, ethically, and effectively.”
In my conversations with educators for this article, that was the first time I had heard the word “ensure” used in reference to students’ ethical AI use.
I asked the chatbot another question: How come AI is so good for first graders?
It responded that AI can “enhance learning,” “foster creativity,” and “personalize learning to meet individual needs, even at an early age.”
Then I asked a question more specific to writing: Is editing writing?
The AI responded that “editing is an integral part of the writing process,” and that “writing encompasses the entire process from ideation to the final product.” So, I asked a follow-up: Can AI help students with ideating and editing an essay?
“Yes,” the chatbot responded, stating that students are encouraged to use AI for brainstorming, for planning ideas and organizing thoughts, and in editing drafts.
Reading the responses, I wrote an if/then statement in my notebook. If ideation and editing are integral aspects of writing an essay and students are encouraged to use AI for them, then does that not innately represent cognitive offloading of integral aspects of writing an essay?
Yes, I believe it does.
When I returned a few days later and asked the chatbot the same questions again, its answers were similar, but not identical. The AI, it seemed, had learned — and altered its answers in subtle but noticeable ways.
WHAT WAS BROKEN? While old-school teaching methods were not perfect, a lot of students learned just fine for a long time before AI-infused curriculums and cognitive offloading. Illustration by Sarah Miller/Moonshine Ink
Waldorf: Trees Before Tech
Public schools are by no means the only option for students and parents in Tahoe/Truckee. Truckee alone offers a number of private and charter schools. I reached out to many and heard back from some, learning that each is eitherallowing or encouraging AI in its curriculum to varying degrees.
One curriculum, however, stood out as unique — Tahoe Truckee Waldorf’s, which teaches students on three campuses from preschool through eighth grade.
“We are a tech-free school and community,” said Alexandra Ball, the school’s admissions manager. “You will not find tech in our classrooms. We ask our families to be cognizant of screentime at home as well.”
Waldorf schools have been around for over 100 years, and they are built on principles of a comprehensive and holistic education aimed to grow students’ intellectual, creative, artistic, and practical skills. Standardized testing is typically limited, and teachers are given a relatively wider range of curriculum autonomy. Nature, play, music, and imagination are widely emphasized as integral tools for learning. A motto of Tahoe Truckee Waldorf is “Trees before Tech.”
“We are tech free not because we are anti-technology but because we believe in developing children’s cognitive abilities and critical thinking abilities before they are introduced to it,” Ball continued, noting the value of human interactions and dealing with real-life situations as educational keys in Tahoe Truckee Waldorf’s curriculum. “We believe it gives children a better start in life.”
Ball grew up in Washington State and went to The Seattle Waldorf School through eighth grade. She has lived in the Tahoe/Truckee area for “about a decade” and all three of her children are in the Tahoe Truckee Waldorf schools.
“It has been proven that technology is not great for attention spans and things like that,” she said. “Plus, it is not really showing that it helps children in reading, comprehension, or aptitude. Countries typically rated high in education, like Sweden, are moving away from technology and back to paper and handwriting. We are not doing anything revolutionary, we are just doubling down on what’s [been] proven to work.
“I believe strongly in giving my kids and all children the best way to develop themselves. As a parent, before I send my children out to the world, I hope their whole brain is being used.”
Adoption: Playing Catch-Up
By the time I got to high school, auto shop had been removed from the curriculum. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. But as an adult who has spent thousands of hours driving, I truly wish my school had found a way to keep that class, and that I would have been taught about the inter-workings of such a crucial thing that my world would entail.
Perhaps it’s the same with today’s students and AI, the auto shop of yesteryear — a tool students will use constantly in their adult lives, whether schools fully embrace it or not.
By many criteria, AI is the most powerful tool the world has ever seen. In reaction, teachers talk about “protecting the productive struggle.” Administrators talk about guardrails. Students talk about accessibility and pressure and time. What they all agree on is that it’s not going away.
When human beings adopt a technology, we adapt to it. We built roads for our cars. We rearranged our living rooms for our televisions. We reorganized our attention spans for our smartphones. And now it’s AI.
Schools are trying to figure out how to adapt to this powerful newcomer — how to use artificial intelligence without letting it replace the very skills schools exist to teach. The technology is moving quickly. The policies, and the classrooms, are trying to catch up.
On a clear and calm Thursday morning, a group of six meets on a pontoon boat at the Tahoe City Marina for a dive. Though everyone there is a return volunteer, Clean Up the Lake Operations Manager Klemen Robnik reviews the plans, everyone’s tasks, and boat and high-altitude-dive safety. After the safety debrief, volunteer Roman Versch, who serves as the group’s boat captain, navigates the boat to the last marked GPS location in Hurricane Bay where the previous divers left off.
Most of the lake’s litter and debris is never seen by people who recreate here, but it is quietly collected by Clean Up the Lake, a volunteer-based (1,300 strong) nonprofit organization. CUTL is on its second circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe’s 72-mile shoreline — this time at a greater depth.
The lake is still and glassy as volunteer Cole Wagner and Operations Assistant Nick Krozek suit up and plop into the water, followed by Rose Demoret, who serves as the kayaker and primary data collector, trailing after the divers’ bubbles.
“So, each time we go out on a dive, I’m actually running a Strava route, so I’m following as close as I can in the path that the divers take, so that they have that data to analyze and see exactly where they have been,” Demoret said. “The other component to that is sometimes they come across items that can’t be picked up.” In that case, divers mark the heavy or bulky items to return to.
In the sweet spot of about 45 feet below the surface, the divers float slowly through the cold water, scanning the lakebed. At such a depth, nitrox — a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen — allows them to stay under water for longer. Cradled in the silt is a trove of trash the divers gather and aquatic invasive species they document.
NITROX and diver propulsion vehicles allow scuba divers to more efficiently search for debris between 35 and 55 feet deep, a more taxing depth than the 25 feet of the first circumnavigation cleanup. Photos courtesy Clean Up the Lake
This particular day the divers cover 0.37 miles, collecting over 150 pounds of litter including a soggy orange shag rug that looks like it fell off an Austin Powers set. Bulky items like the rug are sent to the surface via an inflated, bright orange heavy lift bag, which Robnik then retrieves and inspects to see what’s attached.
“We usually pull out roughly 500 to 1,000 pounds a month,” Robnik said.
He recalled a full, five-step staircase the crew found in Carnelian Bay, several boat ladders, tarps, chains, and lost anchors.
“It never goes away unless it’s salvaged,” Versch said.
ACCIDENTAL LITTER: Divers pull up all sorts of debris within the 35- to 55-foot range, much of which they believe to have accidentally fallen off boats.
Going the Extra Mile
“Initially I was like, there’s not much at all to do here. Lake Tahoe is so clean and so beautiful,” said CUTL Founder and CEO Colin West. “Under the surface … the problem’s just been perpetuating out of sight and out of mind.”
There are piles upon piles of trash in the lake, according to him. Clean Up the Lake’s 72 Mile Cleanup2 began with a deep-clean pilot-project in 2025 at depths up to 25 feet. The first cleanup successfully collected 25,281 pounds of trash. This year’s haul is anticipated to surpass that amount.
The current project kicked off on the West Shore border of Placer County in December. Because Lake Tahoe is calm and free from recreation traffic in winter, cleanup days are booked through the chilly months, leading to divers in wetsuits coming up shivering.
Clean Up the Lake is now traveling clockwise around the lake, following the contours of the shore and scoping out the 35- to 55-foot-deep swath of lakebed. The dives will continue through summer. As of the Ink’s publication, this second cleanup has completed 23 dive days and three sorting days, removing more than 3,557 pounds of debris.
“Based on those numbers over our mileage,” Programs Manager Jenny Uvira said, “it projected for us to actually collect more trash in 35 to 55 depth range than we did in the original circumnavigation.”
Uvira guessed that the tipping point might happen near the project’s 62-mile mark. West emphasized it’s a projection; the reality has yet to be seen.
DIVE TEAM: Divers Cole Wagner and Nick Krozek and kayaker Rose Demoret make their way to a GPS pin to continue the 72 Mile Deep Clean2. Photo by Megan Ramsey/Moonshine Ink
“The only way we know is once we swim across and clean it up ourselves,” West said.
So, what’s down there? Alpine lakes are barren in regards to plant life, but there is an abundance of litter.
“You can’t see it until it comes up,” Versch explained. “The divers see it underwater. You don’t realize how much trash is really in the lake. And so much more than I ever imagined.”
Clean Up the Lake’s mission is to conserve lakes across the Eastern Sierra.
“I’ve had the pleasure of visiting other areas around the world and I’ve seen what can become of our environment and our underwater environments if we disregard them, if we don’t take action now while we can, to protect them and protect the beautiful, wild, and natural look that it’s been for so long,” West said.
West came up with the idea to start a nonprofit when he traveled to Belize and saw trash-ridden beaches on stretches of unmaintained shoreline.
“And I think Tahoe is one of those few areas that still shows signs of how it’s always been. But unfortunately, you know, the litter, the New Zealand mud snail, the Asian clams, the Eurasian modern milfoil, curly leaf pond weed, goldfish, bass, the invasive [species], the garbage, the algae growth from runoff, and nutrient loading — all these problems are really starting to have a detrimental effect on Lake Tahoe.”
HEAVY LIFT: Klemen Robnik pulls a disintegrating tire from the water after divers sent it up with an inflated lift bag. Photo by Megan Ramsey/Moonshine Ink
The Aftermath of Trash
“I think a lot of people just think we pull trash out of the lake and then throw it out and take it to the dump,” Uvira said, “but it’s so much more than that. We sort our trash into 83 different categories.”
The main categories are plastics, metal, glass, and wood, which contain subcategories such as plastic utensils, plastic fishing gear, and others — within plastics, there are 27 different subcategories. Uvira said sorting the trash helps identify problems in different parts of the lake. Near buoy fields, for instance, divers find items like boat covers and metal bird-deterrents. At the current depth they are focused on, heavier items and lots of beer cans and beverage bottles have settled.
Even though they find so much litter, volunteers and employees of Clean Up the Lake think the lake is becoming cleaner.
“In the past, there was a lot more littering. We do find lots more trash that’s a little bit older. And if we revisit an area after a while, chances are that there’s going to be less trash,” Robnik said about his personal observations in the field. “The environmental consciousness of people has gotten better, and we are noticing a lot more of modern litter is accidental littering.”
But that doesn’t mean the accumulated litter is without its detriments.
“If the litter’s not removed, the thousand-plus tires we’ve removed break down and turn into microplastics, make their way into drinking water,” West said. “I’ve seen tons of wildlife entanglement in our lakes of huge, beautiful trout being caught in fishing lines.”
Uvira commented that though the overall weight of plastic that they collect tends to be lower than that of other materials, the number of fragments and microplastics is high. The more plastic degrades, the smaller the particles become, and the harder they are to remove from the drinking water Tahoe provides.
Elizabeth Everest, the consulting environmental scientist and GIS expert for CUTL, noted that when debris like rubber begins to break down, it introduces toxins into the water.
cole WAGNER, a certified diver and one of the 1,300 volunteers with Clean Up the Lake, drops into the water with a splash before descending with his dive buddy. Photo by Megan Ramsey/Moonshine Ink
“Once items have been removed from the lake, there’s less of an impact moving forward,” she explained. “But obviously, as things break down, those small pieces that can’t be physically removed are going to remain in the lake for a really long time.”
The effect of toxins in the water, changes in the ecosystem caused by aquatic invasive species, and rising temperatures accumulate and worsen without actions from organizations like Clean Up the Lake.
“These cleanups are fixing the mistakes of our past. We’ve got decades and decades of litter that’s stacked up underneath lakes here,” West said. “Fresh water is one of our most crucial resources and is only going to become more important as we have 73-degree stretches [all] month long in March [at] 7,000 feet. Climate change is happening. It’s here. It’s been in Tahoe all month long. So, we need to protect these freshwater resources that we have.”
Clean Up the Lake remains optimistic, dive by dive, pound of trash after pound of trash removed.
“I feel like we are making strides, and we’re going in the right direction,” West said. “And hopefully we can continue to spread this work.”
The team emphasized that the sooner debris is removed, the less it will degrade and impact water quality. You don’t need a scuba tank to pitch in.
“If you see a piece of trash, pick it up,” Demoret said. “It’s really pretty easy to keep a little plastic bag or an extra bag with you to collect a little bit of trash any time that you go out. If everybody does a small impact picking up a couple trash items on the shoreline, then one, they’re not going to end up in the water, and then two, it won’t be on the shoreline for people to see. You don’t have to make a huge effort.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Join Clean Up the Lake on Earth Day, April 22, for a cleanup at the Tahoe City Marina. Find more opportunities for volunteering at cleanupthelake.org/volunteer
