​O’NEALS — Every year Minarets High School participates in a school-wide Lip Dub. What is a Lip Dub, you might ask? It combines lip syncing and audio dubbing to make a music video, done in a single unedited shot throughout multiple buildings and locations. It’s been a Minarets tradition since 2012 as a way to bring the entire campus together, ...

You never really know how long March snow will stick around. I did know that snow was up in our local mountains, plenty of it to snowshoe on, so we packed up our ride with 5 hikers, our snowshoes and headed for the SNO-PARK areas above Shaver Lake. Where: Coyote SNO-PARK, Sierra National Forest Distance: 5.89 miles Difficulty: Moderate Elevational Range: ...

We’ve had our place near Bass Lake for about 14 years and thought we had tasted at most of the wineries in the mountains. Several weeks ago, with a group in our favorite little Mexican restaurant in North Fork, we ran across a wine we hadn’t tasted, from a local winery that we had forgotten about — Karine. The name ...

YOSEMITE — Tuolumne Winter Rangers Laura and Rob Pilewski’s latest blog from Yosemite National Park, for Mar. 21, 2018 — the first report of spring. New snow:  33 inches Total settled snow depth: 38 inches (at 8,600 feet) High temperature: 37°F (March 19) Low temperature:  -9°F (March 18) Ski Conditions and Weather  Although the calendar stated that spring had sprung, Mother Nature realized ...

Bright blue skies with white puffy clouds and plenty of snow to enjoy made it the right time to check out the trail and views from Dewey Point. Where: Yosemite National Park Distance: 7.41 Miles Difficulty: Moderate Elevational Range: 7,331′ to 7,569′ Date: March 12, 2018 Map: El Capitan Topographic Map Dog Hike: No Even though snow was late arriving ...

OAKHURST — Permaculture designer and educator Marianna Burrett shares her passion in the second of two workshops focusing on connection to nature and — literally — planting the seeds of health. Organized by nonprofit One Tribe Global, the workshop is on Saturday, Mar. 24, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Community Room at the Oakhurst Branch Library. An earlier ...

O’NEALS — ​​My name is MadaLynn Rocha. I am a junior at Minarets High School, and I have a dream to end cancer. Every year the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society(LLS) holds an annual seven week campaign that specially selected students from the Central Valley participate in. I have been honored to participate alongside my best friend, Hunter Olson from University High ...

First snowshoe adventure of the season in March? Yes indeed, and we sure weren’t going to waste anytime getting our snowshoes on that snow. We just didn’t know when Mother Nature would take that opportunity away from us. A good workout, gaining 1,000 feet in elevation in 2 1/2 miles, but we also received a wonderful surprise when we arrived ...

St. Patrick’s Day usually conjures up images of Irish Whiskey, Guinness or green beer (bizarre tradition by the way – sticking food coloring in your beer so that it becomes a radioactive green). If you think that St. Patrick’s Day is only about drinking (probably not too far from the truth for many of our readers – yes, you know ...

OAKHURST — The Wildland Firefighter Foundation’s first-ever local auction sparked a series of bids to help families of those injured or killed in the line of duty. With nine individuals on the auction block along with some high-value gift baskets, the nonprofit organization raised $2,665 for the cause. “Everyone had a great time,” says event organizer Erin Capuchino, adding absolute ...