Tahoe Tessie? Not likely
LAKE TAHOE – You’ve no doubt heard of Scotland’s Loch Ness monster. Lake Tahoe has its own mythical monster, Tahoe Tessie, but the foremost expert on Lake Tahoe doesn’t believe it exists.
Dr. Charles Goldman, a scientist specializing in water currents, explains that all sightings of Tessie have one thing in common – no one ever sees the head or tail, only dark objects in the water. As such, he said at a recent lecture attended by the Tahoe World, waves can be mistaken for humps.
But if Tessie does exist, it could be a sturgeon, which could have been introduced into the lake with fish stockings over the years. It reaches a weight of 1,500 pounds, and there’s much to eat in Lake Tahoe.
The existence of the Loch Ness monster is more likely, Goldman says, because the Irish Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean through a series of lochs, also called lakes. As such, an oarfish, a species that has reached 20 to 30 feet and 400 pounds, could have swam into Loch Ness and been mistaken for a sea serpent.
Snowmobiler survives steep plunge
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REVELSTOKE, B.C. – A 16-year-old boy was reported “lucky to be alive” after missing a corner on a trail along a 450-meter bluff in the Selkirk Mountains.
While the boy’s father descended the slope to rescue him a friend went for help, says the Revelstoke Times Review. A helicopter arrived within four hours.
After the boy’s broken leg was set the next morning, the family returned home to Minnesota.
West Nile Virus spurs spraying
GRANBY – Despite the spread of West Nile Virus to other, somewhat warmer resort areas of Colorado, no victims have been reported near Granby.
But the mosquitoes that convey the disease abound, and so a collection of town and special-district governments are coalescing to use larvacide, which kills mosquitoes while still in larval form.
Officials say the chemical will kill only mosquitoes, not other insects. The Sky-Hi News reports an appropriation of $25,000 for the spraying program this summer at Granby and its resorts, Grand Elk and SolVista.
Town tries to silence trains
WINTER PARK – Winter Park came into existence basically because of trains. Still, that doesn’t make the shrieks that routinely pierce the neighborhoods there any more pleasant, so town officials there several years ago outlawed such blasts.
Not that it mattered. Union Pacific, which owns the tracks through Winter Park, said the blasts were a matter of safety, and refused to follow the local laws. It was, said the railroad, a federal issue.
But now the Federal Transportation Administration has announced that horns can be stilled “if important safety requirements are met.” What those requirements are doesn’t seem to be evident, but various town officials assure the Winter Park Manifest that finding them out is a high priority.