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Written by Morgan Kriz
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Monday, 31 December 2007 |
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WINTER
-copy.jpg) • Hot Dog 25th Anniversary
Cast and crew returned to Squaw Valley in January to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the most beloved and debaucherous ski movie to set the bar for the genre — Hot Dog The Movie. We caught up with local celebrity Debbie Dutton, a star and stunt double in the film, as well director Mike Marvin, and a few other locals to get their impressions on the movie’s impact not only on themselves, but Tahoe. Perhaps the only way to sum up the experience is best left to the following dialogue exchange…
“You know something Rudi? I think it’s time we settled this once and for all … Chinese downhill. $40 bucks a man. Winner take all.” — Dan O’Callahan [to Rudi and the Rudettes after they bombed them with snowballs]
“Yah, it is the only way. Chinese downhill.” — Rudi
“Rudi, and bring the trophy. I think it should go to the real champion.” — Dan
“I am the champion.” — Rudi
“The Chinese downhill will decide everything.” — Dan
“Yah, it is agreed. Chinese downhill.” — Rudi
“Whata da f*** is the Chinese downhill?” — Kendo Yamamoto [his only English line of the movie]
• Snow Festival
 The Tahoe City Downtown Association presents the biggest party in North Tahoe. Snow Festival consists of approximately 50-60 events throughout the North Tahoe area including a torchlight parade, laser show and fireworks, parades, pancake breakfasts, concerts, bar parties, ski races, dog pulls, an ice-cream eating contest, a luau, Mardi Gras party, ice carving, a polar bear swim and much more. It is truly an opportunity to go out and play with friends, neighbors and visitors. Snow Festival provides a venue for fundraising and educational events for many of the area non-profit organizations. This year’s Snow Festival will take place Feb. 29-March 9, 2008.
• Honda Ski Tour
After one solid weekend of visceral entertainment that included some of the best two planking winter athletes on the planet, a handful of the hottest names in the music business and lots and lots of booze it is fairly safe to say that the Squaw Valley stop of The Honda Ski Tour was one big mixed bag. The nightlife at the Squaw Valley USA stop of The Honda Ski Tour will rival the on-slope action with BCME headliners such as G. Love & Special Sauce, Donovan Frankenreiter, The Wailers, George Clinton, Kamphire Collective, DJ Logic, Matt Reardon & Shane Anderson, Wisdom, Native Root, Jillian Ann and more.
Squaw Valley USA was the fourth and final resort to host the inaugural season of The Honda Ski Tour (THST). THST is North America’s new elite, four-stop mountain festival and skiing competition that features the world’s best halfpipe and ski cross skiers competing for a total of $500,000 over four stops, the largest purse in the sport. Past tour stops included Sun Valley, ID, Breckenridge, CO, and Aspen/Snowmass, CO.
SPRING
 • Opening Day on the West Shore
With mild crowds for a Memorial Day Weekend, the West Shore hosted an event-filled four days called “Opening Day at the Lake” featuring a spectator-friendly seaplane parade at Obexer’s Boat Co. A crowd pleaser for locals and visitors alike, events included deck openings at Sunnyside Resort, Chambers Landing, as well as a patio opening at The Bridgetender, Family Fun Day at Homewood, Chris Craft boat show, bike-a-thon, and live jazz at the West Shore Café.
• Reno River Festival
 The Reno River Festival was successful in its fourth year drawing record crowds of over 32,000 attendees for the weekend. The festival has quickly evolved into one of the nation’s top kayaking competitions, drawing pros from around the world and showcasing kayaking at its best with a weekend full of competitions, demos, clinics, live music and an expo featuring the hottest products on the market.
• Star Follies
Community involvement with the schools is at its best on stage at the Incline Star Follies, a fun-filled fundraiser variety show now in its eighth year. The follies stars more than 120 students and community members and raises close to $100,000 each year for all of Incline’s public schools.
Combined with fundraising events held by Rotary clubs, local Realtors, the elementary school Jog-A-Thon, the high school Crab Feed and Moonlight Serenade, and Incline Schools Academic Education Foundation, plenty of money is being raised to ensure that important art, music and physical education programs are available for all Incline students. Third year returnee and elementary school principal Frank Garrity agrees that “commitment to Star Follies is not only to have fun, but to do something that will come back to the schools as monetary gain for the children.”
Star Follies, the lip-synching competition has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in its eight-year existence for the immediate benefit of the Incline schools. In November of 2007 the gave a rainy-day fund worth more than $34,500 to Incline Schools Academic Education Foundation.
 • Earth Day
Earth Day is a time to celebrate the biological wonder and diversity of the earth and appreciate the opportunity you have, as a sentient thing to experience it. It is also a time to evaluate to what extent you, as an individual, contribute to the degradation and destruction of the world — and what you can do to ease the burden your choices place on all other living things.
The Village at Squaw Valley and Incline Village hosted fun events for participants of all ages to learn about Zero Waste, greenbuilding, climate change, Tahoe’s clarity, forest and habitat preservation, recycling and what they can do right now to make a difference. The Village was filled with representatives from various agencies, organizations and businesses.
The Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival at Bar One in Squaw Valley, sat apart from the hundreds of festivals around the world by leaving viewers feeling inspired and motivated to go out and make a difference in your community and the world.
SUMMER
• Music Festival — Kenny Loggins
 Whether you’re into music and movies or not, or are younger than 30 … you have heard a song from Grammy award-winning artist Kenny Loggins. If you are younger than 30, you may not know his name or recognize his face, but Loggins has produced some of the best known soundtracks including “I’m Alright,” from Caddyshack, “Footloose,” from the 1980s movie hit featuring Kevin Bacon and “Danger Zone, from Top Gun. Loggins is dubbed the “king of the movie theme songs.” Kenny Loggins and his 14-member band brought three decades of hits to the Lake Tahoe Music Festival’s new home venue, Homewood Mountain Resort on July 24.
His son, Crosby Loggins opened the show with his own melody — blending funk, folk and R&B.
• Tour de Fat
 Bikes, bands, and beer, what could be better?
New Belgium Brewing Company pedaled its Tour de Fat road show to Truckee on Saturday, July 29 for a day of fun and fundraising.
In 2006 the Tour de Fat’s visit to Truckee raised $4,000 for the Truckee Trails Foundation, and $350 for the Truckee Donner Land Trust. The proceeds from this year allow the two organizations to build new trails, preserve and restore the river and meadows, and host Truckee River Day and Truckee Trails Day. On top of the festivities and fundraising, the Tour de Fat also strives to be a zero-impact event environmentally. Last year 85 percent of the total trash from the Tour was kept out of landfills through recycling and composting, but this year New Belgium hit the 95 percent mark.
• Tour De Nez
Professional cyclists zipped around the difficult turns from Jibboom Street onto Bridge Street, Church Street and down Commercial Row on Friday, June 15, during the Truckee Criterium, part of the 15th annual Tour de Nez bicycle races.
Reno resident Alex Candelario of team Jelly Belly placed first in the pro criterium, which sent racers sprinting laps through downtown Truckee to the cheers of local supporters.
Candelario was followed by Juan Pablo Forero of the Colombian National Team and Tony Cruz of the Discovery Channel Team.
Described as a “festival of cycling” by race director Tim Healion, the Tour de Nez was scaled back to two days of criterium racing this year, with the first race in Truckee and the second held in downtown Reno on Saturday, June 16.
Michael Sayers of the BMC Pro Cycling Team won the Reno criterium, but Candelario’s third place finish on the second night was good enough to take the overall title.
• Red, White and Tahoe Blue
The first annual Red, White and Tahoe Blue celebration entertained with 3 days of exciting events. Events included an Incline Village Parade, Golf Tournament, Sporting events, Community breakfasts, barbecues and entertainment including national talent Lacy J. Dalton. The three days of fun, food, education, entertainment culminated with dueling fireworks displays that were more spectacular than ever.
Red, White and Tahoe Blue is a collaboration of the following local organizations: North Lake Tahoe Lions Club, Optimists Club, Incline Village Rotary Clubs, Incline Village/Crystal Bay Board of Realtors, IVGID , Incline Schools Academic Excellence Foundation, Incline Village/Crystal Bay Visitor’s Bureau. Each of the following collaborators received $7,000 in 2007: The North Lake Tahoe Lions Club, The Optimists Club of Incline Village, The Rotary Club of Incline Village, The Rotary Club of Tahoe-Incline and The Incline Schools Academic Excellence Foundation. The Children’s Cabinet of Incline Village also received $7,500 as a result of collaborating on the I-Can Run/Walk.
• Down on the Farm
Moody’s Bistro & Lounge in Truckee hosted the July fundraising event, where executive chef Mark Estee offered the item “Down on the Farm.” Groups of eight with $2,500 to give for hunger relief bought themselves a night to remember in the Sierra Valley, where they were catered to by Moody’s staff in a rustic barn as the sun set over the mountains.
Dinner was presented on the Sierra Valley Farm, in the third-generation Romano family barn, built in 1939. The three-course dinner was designed and created by Mark Estee, a board member of Project MANA and executive chef at Moody’s Bistro & Lounge. Tickets for this event were auctioned at the Project MANA benefit auction at Moody’s in July. Views of the Sierra foothills and Beckwourth Peak and the family style, sit-down meal at a table set for 36 lent the whole evening a rustically elegant air.
• Midsummer Night-mare
 A bit of Cirque du Soleil came to Tahoe in August as Director Christopher Childers brought an amazing cast of dancers, stilt walkers, aerialists, martial artists and all around amazing performers to Sand Harbor State Park.
The storyline followed a young girl’s dream/nightmare, brought on by her consumption of a hallucinogenic flower on a dare. Stilt walkers, dancers, aerialists, contortionists and exotic performers of all stripes — all of them elaborately costumed and each seemingly more amazing than the last — took the stage as the nightmare ran its course.
FALL
• CBC brings Blues Traveler to North Tahoe
Although admittedly “dog tired” after touring since July, Blues Traveler jammed for a sold out crowd at the Crystal Bay Club’s Crown Room on Friday, Dec. 14, giving Tahoe locals an incendiary holiday treat. While they did seem tired at times and a little lost in their jams, Blues Traveler managed to play a solid set of old favorites, obligatory hits and mixed up re-writes, all while having fun with the crowd and each other.
 • Trails and Vistas
Performance artists, dancers and musicians performed to groups of hikers from scenic locations along two and a half miles of the Pacific Crest Trail on Donner Summit Sept. 9. Visual art was also on display during the art walk.
The event, known as Trails and Vistas, was a collaborative effort of the Truckee Donner Land Trust, Arts For the Schools and InnerRhythms Dance Theatre.
• Pink Party
Every year there comes a time to bust out the pink boas, the pink slippers and pink ties, for the annual Tahoe Luna Chix Pink Party at Bar of America, in downtown Truckee. The Pink Party is a fabulous fundraising event to raise awareness and money for the Breast Cancer Fund. The Luna Chix are groups of women throughout America that enjoy sports and the outdoors together. The Tahoe Luna Chix have guaranteed half of the proceeds from the Pink Party to the Breast Cancer Fund and the other half for programs specific to the Tahoe area.
The Pink Party is one of the biggest see-and-be-seen events of the season. The Los Locos band and Sol’Jibe provided the evening’s musical entertainment.
 • Village Trail of Treats and Terror
All trick-or-treaters were invited to the award winning annual Village of Treats and Terror where participants walked the plank at “The PCC Scary Skeleton Soiree,” headed through “The Talking Tree Forest” and “Ghoulish Games and A Spider Shindig.” Slithered along “Jack-O-Lantern Lane” to “The Snakes Nest” and continued through the “Groovy Graveyard” to The “Haunted Halls of Sierra Nevada College”
• Creepers Ball
For the fourth consecutive year the Crystal Bay Casino is hosting the North Shore’s spookiest party, The Creeper’s Ball. Tainted Love, the seven-piece outfit from San Francisco, brought show goers back to the days when keyboards ruled the airwaves, cascading hairdos were commonplace and outlandish fashions lit up the pioneering early days of MTV.
 • The Outside Magizine Photo Shoot
The Tahoe World’s Paul Raymore caught up with four of the Tahoe athletes involved in the Outside magazine photo shoot to see what they thought about being a part of a fashion photo shoot, and what they think of Tahoe style.
In their words: “The whole affair was amusing. It involved six laid back Tahoe local athletes; a couple fun life-loving women from the magazine, in from Santa Fe; a down-to-earth photographer and his crew from Austin; and a high-strung, high-energy ‘fashion consultant’ from L.A. (plus her assistant) who cracked me up with their take control, time is money, ‘Look beautiful for the camera sweetheart,’ ‘Those boots DO NOT go with that sweater,’ ‘Who told you to wear that?’ attitude. You could tell they’d done this before… but with real models. Overall it was a great mix of people and personalities, and it seemed we all had a good time working together.”
• The Boys & Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe hosts Dodgeball Tournament
Last year the club’s inaugural Dodgeball Championship tournament — brainchild of staffers Mindy Carbajal and Ben Visnyei — started by word of mouth and on game day 13 teams of six to 10 players each showed up to perform the five Ds of Dodgeball (if you haven’t seen the movie, that’s “Dodge, Dip, Duck, Dive, and, um, Dodge”). The second annual Dodge For a Cause Dodgeball Championship promised more polyester, more spandex, as well as cheap 1980s headbands for every player.
• Tahoe World’s ski & snowboard movie reviews
Since a couple early-season storms dropped teasing reminders that winter was almost upon us, we hadn’t yet seen any dumps big enough to get skiers’ and snowboarders’ hopes up by Thanksgiving.
So what to do to fill the void?
The next best thing: Pick up one of the new crop of ski and snowboard videos available now, gather up some friends and watch the pros pull off superhuman feats on snow.
And to help you make your choice, we present our third annual Tahoe World Ski/Snowboard Film Roundup.
This year we did things a bit differently than in years past and cut down the list of films we reviewed to only those with a strong local connection. So every film you’ll read about in these pages was produced by a local production company, features local athletes, or contains quite a bit of footage from around the Tahoe region.
And you know what? Keeping it local didn’t cut down on the quality of films or the excitement we got from viewing them in any way. If anything, we were more stoked than ever to see the level of talent and amazing terrain that Tahoe has to offer.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 31 December 2007 )
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