A wonderful golden fall was cut abruptly short last week by the early arrival of winter. My jack-o-lantern is destroyed by frost even before Halloween!

2-feet of snow killed the phones & power & closed the road last week, sending me into a scramble to get pipes drained, window shutters up, equipment & supplies stored away, summer vehicles winterized & winter vehicles up & running.

Utilities came back on line just in time for another foot or more of snow by Tuesday. At present, the sky is grey & we continue to get flakes now & again, adding up to about 5 additional inches since yesterday noon.

The road is closed again after a brief re-opening; snowmobiles are the mode of station access for the time being. The new snowcat is absolutely wonderful for packing & flattening the snowy road!

Our Fish-Cam is finally on-line--check it out!

The Truckee Ranger District on the Tahoe National Forest generously provided us a snowcat that was just refurbished by Sagehen. It arrived the other day, it's unloaded & ready for the snowfall. Thanks go to the Forest Service--this will help us out a lot in the winter!

Recent Sagehen press appeared in:

The Transect
UC NRS web-site

This week we're working on weather station updates including expanded solar panel arrays, larger batteries, tree sap flow & stream height sensors.

We're also getting much needed computer help from Kevin Browne of the James Reserve (our hero!).