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Bear Valley Summer Lifts - Wooot!

Friday, 23 July 2010 13:28 BigTreesTechMan

Have you heard? Bear Valley Mountain is opening Lifts this summer for hikers and mountain bikers! How cool is that!!!

They just recently announced this pilot program. Lifts will operate every Saturday from August 7th through September 4th between 10am and 3pm. The're also going to be operating a free shuttle for folks who ride down the mountain into the village. The shuttle will pick up riders / hikers from the Bear Valley Adventure Company and take them back up the mountain to the parking area.

They're charging $25 for the lift with your mountain bike, and $10 for the lift if you're hiking down sans bike. There's also a discount for season pass holders.

And, guess what... You don't even need to bring your own bike! Bear Valley Adventure Company will be renting them.

You can read all about it, and get their contact information on the Bear Valley website.

Last Updated ( Friday, 23 July 2010 13:38 )

Changes Coming

Thursday, 17 June 2010 09:56 BigTreesTechMan

Hi All!

I'll bet you were getting tired of seeing frozen Lake Alpine . Me too.

As you know, I've been busy with the new site, Sierra Joe's and have neglected Big Trees Tech a bit. Now that the new site is pretty much operational, I'm going to be spending a lot more time writing articles, taking pictures, and making short videos all over the Sierras. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that sort of work rather than sitting here behind the keyboard, writing php, html, css, etc. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the technical work but it'll be nice to get out and about!

So, the changes... You may have already noticed one small change... the list of recent articles from the new site that I've put over on the right hand side of this page. A bigger change, that I hope to figure out soon, will be to post content from each new article right here on BigTreesTech. You'll still have to go to the new site to read older articles, search for articles, look at multi-episode articles, etc. Also there will be some portions of the Sierra Joe's version that won't transfer over like the maps, and summary information. However, what does transfer to this site should help make the content a lot more dynamic than it has been recently.

Now, there may be a down side... Due to the way the sites are structured under the hood, it has become very difficult (as in I'm not going to do it) to create a test environment for interaction between the sites. What this means is that I'm going to be doing development work directly on the live BigTreesTech site... All together now... YIKES! So, there may be some things that get a little broken from time to time. My apologies in advance.

Finally, I'm guessing some of you are wondering "why the new site?". There are a few reasons:

This site is very area specific, and community oriented. The new site will cover topics all over the Sierra Nevada.
This site is a community service / hobby. SierraJoes will more commercially oriented with advertisements etc.
This site is primarily for you, our friends and neighbors. The new site will try to attract a much broader audiance.
Because of the way I wanted to create and present content on SierraJoes, I chose a completely different software platform for it.

Stay Tuned!

joe

Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 June 2010 10:47 )

Calaveras Back Roads - Extreme!

Saturday, 17 April 2010 13:43 BigTreesTechMan

Suffering from a touch of cabin fever this morning so decided to take a little drive on some back roads here in Calaveras County. The first half of the drive was stunningly picture perfect. The second half of the drive was... well, have you ever found yourself on one of those unmaintained dirt roads in the back country where you say to yourself "boy, I sure wish I'd brought my emergency kit with me" or "man, I sure wish I'd let someone know where I was going and when I planned to be back", or "God, I sure hope I make it out of here!", well, on the second half of the drive, all of those came to mind multiple times. More on that later. Finally, the third half of the drive was pretty, but tame, familiar for the most part, and a nice change from the white knuckle ride preceding it. That's right, make no mistake about it, this drive was a drive an a half!

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 20 April 2010 12:19 ) Read more...