Each September round bar cyclists gather in Lake Tahoe for a
72-mile ride around the big, pristine lake.
The fastest time was set in 2010 at 2 hours, 15 minutes and 21.9
seconds. Race legend has it that local
school boy Greg LeMond (he grew up in Reno) completed the 72 miles in 3:15
while still a high school student. It is
not a closed course so traffic and other obstacles can slow progress but the
first nine miles do have an escort that gets riders through a series of 25
traffic lights. The course begins and
ends in front of the Zephyr Cove Lodge and riders will have an elevation gain
of 3,900 feet.
The SBT crew recently blogged about a ride around Crater
Lake in Oregon. We noted that Crater
Lake is the deepest lake in the United States.
Lake Tahoe is second. Lake Tahoe
is the creation of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and as the high peaks of the
Sierras were pushed up something had to in turn, push down. This movement of tectonic plates helped take
the lake to a maximum depth of almost 1,700 feet. (Crater Lake is about 300 feet deeper). Like Crater Lake, Lake Tahoe is nearly as
clear with recent water clarity measured at 70 feet. In the 1960s that clarity was measured down
to 100 feet. The creeping murkiness has
not been gradual, scientists studying the lake think it has been only since
2006. The reason for this cloudiness is
goldfish. And we aren’t talking about the
goldfish you kept in a tank as a kid or swallowed stupid drunk in college. These things are wild Giant Goldfish. Yes, they do exist.
Researchers are alarmed and not sure how these beasts were
able to enter the lake. They are a
problem because they eat constantly thus wiping out the food sources of other
native fish. The round-the-clock feeding
leads to just as frequent excreting, and all of that excrement in the water
leads to cloudy conditions and lower oxygen supplies. This in turn leads to the formation of
algae.
Lake Tahoe is at its widest part 22 miles and it is as we mentioned,
deep. Rounding up all of the unwanted
goldfish (probably released from simple suburban fish tanks years ago, what enviro-scientists call "aquarium dumping") has proven
to be quite difficult. The Environmental
Protection Agency has stepped in to help.
The EPA is experimenting with electro-fishing, an electrical pulse is
sent into the depths to stun fish. The
temporarily paralyzed fish then float to the surface. The Giant Goldfish are then taken while the
other species are allowed to recover and go back to their daily routine. Electro-fishing is a slow process and only
removes about 50 fish at a time. It is
believed the fish are outpacing the catching program and they continue to
grow. On average they weigh nearly five
pounds and grow to nearly two feet in length.
See the photo for proof.
If you are planning to be a part of the 72-mile Great Lake
Tahoe Bike Ride the date is set for September 28, 2013. Visit the event website at www.laketahoemarathon.com/bike. It might be a good idea to bring your fishing
pole, you may have an awesome fish story to tell.
Visit our website for a news video of the Goldfish problem in Lake Tahoe, www.stickybottleteam.net.
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