Ecological Footprint Quiz

How big is your footprint? -

In honor of Earth Day and at the recommendation of Holly I decided to check out what my ecological footprint is. I went to http://www.myfootprint.org/ and took their online quiz. It turns out that my life style requires 14 acres, and that if everybody were to live like me it would take 4.5 Earths. Ouch!! However, I'm still doing better than the average American who uses 24 acres per person.

Tahoe Regional Planning Authority reverses decison about North Bowl Expansions

North Bowl Trees Saved -

This week during a re-hearing the Tahoe Regional Planning Authority reversed its decison to allow Heavenly to cut the North Bowl old growth to allow for a high speed chairlift. As of now, they are leaving it up to Heavenly to choose between Alternative 4A- The kinked lift, and Alternative 5 - Replace existing lifts with high speed quads. This is a victory in the Tahoe Basin, and an amazing demonstration of how impactful community organizing and grass roots efforts can be. Not only was the board meeting room completley packed with concerned local citizens yesterday, but they had to set up an overflow room with video-conferencing - and the overflow room was also standing room only. Pretty amazing!

Poster takes third place in College of Science contest

Avalanche Terrain Poster takes third -

Last semester Tim Weigel and I took a class from Gary Raines of the USGS about modeling using GIS. We learned about weights of evidence, fuzzy logic, and artificial neural networks. Tim and I did a project in collaboration with Randall Osterhuber at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory in which we used weights of evidence to model avalanche terrain in watersheds adjacent to two watersheds that had been heavily studied.

We entered the poster that we made for class in the 2007 College of Science poster competion and took third place. I'm planning on giving a talk at the Nevada GIS conference at South Lake Tahoe next month about this project. Below is a snapshot of the poster. Click on the image for a larger view. I intend to update the image with a better one sometime in the near future.

Spring in Full Bloom

Spring Arrives in Reno -

Spring is in full bloom here in Reno! Never before have I lived in a city with so many cherry trees. It certainly came as a big surprise, since cherry blossoms are not usually what people associate with Nevada. The university campus, in particular, is beautiful this time of year. The large elm trees that line the historic quad have leafed out and the grass is a brilliant green. Holly and I are beginning to prepare the garden for summer.

The photograph on the left is of daffodils that our neighbors have planted. The photograph on the right is of the tree next to our house.

Climbing at Sugarloaf and River Rock

Climbing at Sugarloaf and River Rock -

The last couple of weekends I've discovered new climbing spots here in the Reno/Tahoe area. The first was Sugarloaf, which lies just west of Lover's Leap along Highway 50. Sugarloaf is an old school crag climbed by the likes of Warren Harding in the 1950s. It features an incredible variety of chimneys, cracks, and off-widths and has a surprisingly Yosemite-like feel. The area is southfacing and is great for early season climbing.

The second locale is River Rock. River Rock is located just outside of Verdi about 2 miles past the California border. Although it is a relatively small area it has great routes, quality rock, and is located in a nice spot near the Truckee River. More information about River Rock can be found at the following website:
http://harter-climbing.aci.net/riv.html