A headon collision  in the Mousehole has the got the safety issue in the news.  Again.   Here’s how Davis solved its Mousehole problem:

Richards Blvd. in Davis

It doesn’t look like it took 10 years or $20 million to accomplish, either.

Drat!  Just as I was about to head off to Yosemite some idiot target shooters touched off a massive wildfire that’s smoking the place out.    I just discovered this smoke forecasting map at NOAA so the southern Sierra is looking good right now.

The folks, a pair of ex-newscasters,  at Yubanet are doing a bang-up job keeping track of all the fires and smoke.  Joe Bob sez check it out

Lately in the media there’s been a lot of tut-tutting about those selfish, foolish, and irresponsible Big Sur homeowners ignoring evacuation orders to stay behind and defend their homes. In fact, that’s the standard official and media position regarding every Calfornia-Nevada wildfire. Guess what, in the land down under, which has an equally serious wildfire problem, the powers-that-be have decided that in most cases its better strategy to support homeowners staying behind and swatting out the spot fires! They even publish “The Homeowner’s Bush Fire Survival Manual” advising homeowners on protective clothing and the like. A copy is available at http://tinyurl.com/bushfire. Not only does it contain detailed advice not found in US wildfire literature for civilians, it’s also interesting how much less nannyish disaster management is elsewhere than here in the land of the free and home of the brave.

Boy the smoke is the worst I have ever experienced up here, worse than when the fires were local.   Here’s a depressing satellite photo:

I think I’ll lay aside my peak-bagging agenda, as you can’t see anything anyway, and head down to the Bay Area.  The air quality is doubtless better.

Lately there’s been quite a swarm of earthquakes between Truckee and Reno. There have been scores of tremors felt in the city, including a M4.2 trembler on April 24 followed by a M4.7 shaker on April 25. There was another minor one I felt up here in Truckee last night.   Some sources have been saying the pattern resembles that of rising magma.   The USGS says that because of the shallow 1 to 3-mile depth of the quakes there is little chance that they are being caused by roiling hot molton magma preparing to unleash God’s wrath on Sin City North. Nope. Just a little subterranean stress relief going on is all. Please remain calm and resume gambling.   I’m going skiing at Squaw.

Summer peak-bagging is just around the corner.   I highly recommend Pete Yamagata’s Northern Sierra Peaks Guide for lots of ideas about area peaks to add to your list.   Most are within a 90 minute drive from Truckee and are nontechnical.  One caveat: Pete seems to recommend a lot of ski descents speculatively: i.e., he hasn’t done them, it just looks like a likely route from a summer hike.

I see Sugar Bowl is cooling on the idea of interconnecting with the proposed Royal Gorge lifts in the Lola’s Lookout/Ice Lakes Lodge area, which would have made them de facto Sugar  Bowl lifts.    The SLPOA membership really dodged a bullet — for the time being their properties won’t be hit  with that dreaded walk-to-Sugar-Bowl-ski-lift designation and the associated property value impacts.   Heck, Serene Lakes property values might have started to approach those in Sugar Bowl.  The horror, the horror.

Nonetheless, I have my own little interconnect scheme I practice in years when I have a Sugar Bowl pass.   I take my heavy-duty backcountry touring gear (Garmont Excursions and Fischer E99 Crowns) over to the Van Norden trailhead, buy a day pass, slog over on the official interconnect,  telemark Sugar Bowl’s groomed intermediate runs, eat lunch, take the Disney chair, traverse across Strawberry Fields and Crows Nest along the ridge to Lola’s Lookout and then return to Van Norden.  I call the concept “lift-served ski-touring”.