A Weekend of Hope
The wind, snow and persistent freezing temperatures that affected areas of the High Sierra this past week somewhat spared the Hope Valley (CA-88), providing one refuge of peak color in the Northern Sierra.
Clayton Peoples found, as reported yesterday, that while the cold snap had dulled color in several places, enough Patchy trees were in the Hope Valley that there’s still plenty of Near Peak and Peak color to to avoid destruction.
High winds did strip many groves of their leaves, but enough remain to continue to put on a bright show, as seen in Clayton’s images.
He suspects, “Hope Valley will still be gorgeous this weekend — but also that all the snow seen on Tuesday will have melted off by then. But there’s only one way for people to find out … GO NOW!”
- Hope Valley (7,300′) – Peak (75 – 100%) GO NOW!
If you include visiting Lake Tahoe on a trip to the Hope Valley, you’ll be disappointed. South Lake Tahoe is still largely Patchy and no Kokanee are running at Taylor Creek. Give it a week for the trees and until it rains for the salmon to spawn.
A stop by the Taylor Creek Visitor Center, operated by the USDA Forest Service was equally depressing. The facility does not appear to have been maintained since it was opened, seemingly decades ago. It was once a modern, attractive building (no doubt a point of pride for the Forest Service), but is today a deteriorating, embarrassing example of failed government planning, funding and neglect.
Restrooms are locked shut (porta potties are provided instead); black plastic trash bags wrap water fountains that no longer work; once-colorful interpretive signs are so faded as to be unreadable as is the center’s welcome sign. When installed, the sign had a USFS logo and the words “Taylor Creek Visitor Center”, now it’s hard to make out what the remaining letters once said. Yesterday, a steady stream of visitors walked to the shuttered derelict, shrugged, then left bewildered, as dejected forest service workers shuffled past like chastised zombies.
No doubt, someone in the Forest Service will read this, eventually. When they do, rather than repair and reopen the center, someone will decide to throw in the towel. A worker will be sent out to Taylor Creek to padlock the gate to the visitor center parking lot, and elsewhere in government another billion dollars will be spent building a bullet train between two farm towns that don’t want it and won’t use it.
As for U.S. 50, it’s disheartening. The Caldor fire crossed the highway at several points between elevation 5,000′ and Echo Summit (7,382′). The forest leading up to the summit and bit beyond it varies from black sticks, to dead trees with brown needles, to green trees, though no fall color is visible. Delays occur along sections of the highway where it is reduced to one lane. The sign to Sierra at Tahoe has been painted over in Navy blue and season pass holders are being given the option for a refund or to keep their pass and ski this winter (should lifts open) and also the following winter.
I’ve heard from ski writers (I used to be one) that the ski lift’s cables were so stretched by the fire’s heat that they will need to be replaced and considering the supply chain difficulties occurring presently, it will likely be a long time before they can be remade and restrung. Further, though the fire spared the ski area’s day lodge, it wiped out a maintenance shop and the equipment inside. Indications are that the ski area will not reopen for its 75th season. Though, I’m more optimistic that the can-do executives at Sierra at Tahoe will get their ski area up and running long before the incompetent bureaucrats in the Forest Service reopen the rest rooms at Taylor Creek.
- Lake Tahoe (6,225′) – Patchy (10 – 50%)
- Taylor Creek – Kokanee salmon are not yet spawning
- US 50 (5,000 to 7,382′) – Past Peak, You Missed It.
