Frozen oasis — just a helicopter ride away
By Kathryn Reed
Hover. Just hover. Go back. Lower, please. And then it was all over – and way too quickly.
If only I had been able to commandeer the helicopter or shout commands.
But the memory of flying over Emerald Bay and near Desolation Wilderness, that will last forever even if the 30-minute flight wasn’t long enough. (I’m not really sure how many hours would have been required before I would have been satiated.)
Three of the area’s most iconic waterfalls – Eagle, Cascade and Horsetail – at the same time lost a bit of their majesty and gained even more. All of this because of a helicopter ride.
A helicopter tour reveals a frozen backcountry lake west of Lake Tahoe. Photos/Kathryn Reed
They were magnificent, but something about hiking to them – the time that it takes, the views, the sound – is such a classic way of viewing them. But this eagle’s view, well, it gives a different perspective to all that rushing water.
Water is flowing strong now down the falls. The whir of the blade replaces the thunder of the water.
The waterfall tour is one of six that Reno Tahoe Helicopters provides for those who want to see the Lake Tahoe area from a different perspective.
“I would have never known all of those lakes were there,” Cheryl Johnston of Atlanta said when touching down at Lake Tahoe Airport. The ride was one of the highlights of her first vacation to the area.
The pilot says there are about three dozen lakes to see on this trip. Some are recognizable to a local – Eagle, Echo, Cascade, Fallen Leaf.
Others are ones found on summer hikes – the Velmas, Susie, Heather, Aloha.
Oh, those frozen ones. That is a sight not seen on a hike. The icy blue looks like something out of Alaska. Mesmerizing, chilling, spectacular, otherworldly – find a superlative and it’s bound to fit.
With snow in abundance in the higher elevations, much of the terrain was a winter wonderland last Monday.
This is the slow season for the helicopter company, despite its being the height of waterfall season. Though, the waterfall tour is the most popular right now.
On a busy summer Saturday they could make 20 tours.
The pilot said there is no rule about how high they must be, but they are usually at 8,200 feet. The reason is to not be a noise polluter, so to speak, for those who are on the ground.
Claudio Bellotto, who has been flying out of the South Shore since 2005, gives a bit of history while flying over the Tahoe Keys, then Emerald Bay and beyond into the backcountry.
The Bell Long Ranger IV has a window seat for the five passengers it can seat. Three helicopters are in the South Tahoe fleet, with two others now operating out of the Truckee airport.
A fly fishing guide out of Truckee arranges for helicopter rides for his clients – landing at a resort near Markleeville so they can cast along the Carson River.
It’s not just tourists – or the occasional local – who buckle into the bird. Pilots have taken film crews around the area for various shoots. This winter a helicopter was in the air for five hours to film the Freeride ski event at Kirkwood. A cineflex was attached to the nose.
Range Rover hired a pilot to shoot aerial shots for a commercial. Boeing is coming up soon – but the helicopter company hasn’t been told the exact assignment. National Geographic has been a repeat client.
After the 2007 Angora Fire, a pilot took a crew up with infrared devices to look for smoldering hot spots.
In addition to the scenic and commercial flights, Bellotto operates a helicopter flight school. It’s the highest elevation flight school in North America.
More information about Reno Tahoe Helicopters may be found online.
Yeah, and just think of how many people below you shook their fist and gave you the bird. Helicopter touring should be banned in the basin. Where is the TRPA when we really need them.
You are right Jim. Those helicopters are nothing but noise polluters, and when over our neighborhoods they are never at 8200ft, more like 6700ft. —–holes!
I agree with Jim and Steven – touring helicopters should be banned in the basin. I don’t care how great your views are from those NOISE polluters – it is a selfish pleasure that robs the rest of us of the peace & quiet that nature is meant to provide. Get your hiking boots out and see the sights the natural way, and leave the helicopters to emergency work in the Tahoe basin!
Thanks Jim, Steven, and Irish. I agree those helicopters are a nuisance and selfishly ruin the experience for the majority of us who hike or snowshoe in to enjoy the beauty plus the peace and quiet. And Kae, check your facts, there are rules about how high aircraft must be when flying over Desolation Wilderness. It is a FEDERAL Class I Area.
Great comments.
Helicopter touring should be banned in the basin.
I agree – where is the TRPA when we really need them.
Great article and photos!
FAA Information Effective 07 March 2013
“Avoid Desolation Wilderness West of Airport”
http://www.airnav.com/airport/TVL
Do these helicopters have an exemption or are an exception?
Great article Kae and nice pics. As usual, it is usually the complainers who always write in. I guess they don’t realize they live in a tourist town. If they want peace and quiet, they should move to the wilderness in Alaska or somewhere remote.
If “Steve Says” is correct, then this helicopter was flying illegally in Desolation. That unknown lake is Susie Lake and you would have to be in, over, Desolation Wilderness to get that picture.
Our helicopter tour company seems to me to be a very good neighbor. They have quiet helicopters, and fly high. I don’t find them annoying at all.
Tahoe ain’t a national park, y’all. It’s very urban in several areas. As another poster said, if you want quiet, MOVE someplace that is not a tourist destination. Mr. Hildinger makes his money off tourists too. It’s rather disingenuous of him to want to ban tours.
I especially like the hypocrisy of Mr. Hildinger’s comments, echoed by horribly selfish people, whose family operates a resort in the wilderness. I don’t care how long you have been there, nature has been there longer. Obviously, the existence of a resort in the wilderness is not a problem even though it interferes with the purity of enjoying nature without cabins, electricity and phones. Angora Lakes should be returned to “nature”, free of charge. You are all selfish snobs in my opinion. If you want peace and quiet, go somewhere else, where the reasonable expectation of peace and quiet is possible. It is absolutely ridiculous to imagine yourself knowing “what nature was meant to provide”. What hubris!
BTW, the “expertise” of FAA regulations is infantile and has the ring of “I’m going to tell…”. The term “avoid” is not a regulation, it is an advisory and has no requirement whatsoever. Pathetic, IMHO. We should celebrate another way that tourists can experience the wonder that is Lake Tahoe and be thankful that Signore Bellotto is trying to keep a business going in our town. Quit being such NIMBYs.
If you want peace and quiet, go somewhere else, where the reasonable expectation of peace and quiet is possible. It is absolutely ridiculous to imagine yourself knowing “what nature was meant to provide”. What hubris!
Ride on Snow Globes,noise at its finest!
Peace.
” It is absolutely ridiculous to imagine yourself knowing “what nature was meant to provide”. What hubris!”
Obviously you have never hiked 10 miles off trail to an old growth forest.
You should. Then you should go read.
Then lets ban those pesky speedboats that you can hear droning all day long. Or, how about those darned noisy motocycles that come here. Geez, how about let’s ban everything that even remotely sounds like fun and brings $ to the area.
As long as we’re banning noisy things then how about those pesky speedboats that drone on all day long, or those even louder motocycles. Yep, let’s get rid of anything remotely fun and that brings $ to the local economy. Who needs it? We like to be stuck in the past.
The flight pattern of these choppers is directly over the Upper Truckee River Marsh/Meadow (which my back yard abuts) and the bird sanctuary which runs along the river by Cove East trail to the Lake. Besides creating a ceaseless droning of helicopter noice to and from Emerald Bay every TEN MINUTES over my back yard, it is a constant disturbance to the breeding areas for native Tahoe marsh and lake birds. I can’t even have a phone conversation on my deck when those incredibly noisy (especially the newer, larger choppers) fly overhead. They have GOT to be violating a noise restriction. Does anyone know who to file complaints with? TRPA? City of South Shore? Conservancy?
Thingfish, you apparently do not have any information about what I have done as regards the wilderness, and you probably won’t ever acquire that knowledge. A closed mind with selfish intentions cannot learn or have any hope of empathy. If you think that you or anyone else should decide how individuals should enjoy nature, you can’t see the slippery slope. It is patently obvious.
Here’s a link to the TRPA noise complaint form:
http://www.trpa.org/communitycorner/noise/NoiseComplaint.htm
Dunno if it will help, but it can’t hurt.
“The pilot said there is no rule about how high they must be, but they are usually at 8,200 feet. The reason is to not be a noise polluter, so to speak, for those who are on the ground.”
No rule? Seriously?
Nice to know they’re making an effort. NEWS FLASH: It’s not working.
I have been thinking about this issue a little more. Does anyone ever actually think about what they post? Demanding that everyone around them do exactly what THEY think that should be done? I may not like all the noises that other people make, but I would never decide to put someone else out of business because of my opinion. I find it difficult to imaging someone looking for yet another regulation simply because they don’t like a certain noise. Lawn mowers, leaf blowers, certain cars and motorcycles, airplanes, etc. What is next, banning certain voices? Banning Blue Jay calls? It just seems entirely too restrictive to constantly complain about more and more details. The assumptions about what other people know or think is just so contrary to the idea of liberty and freedom. Just my humble opinion. I like to live and let live. Peace. TRPA complaint forms indeed. Good Grief.
How does the TRPA get involved in noise issues. Are they now big brother for all things Tahoe?
I thought the mission of the TRPA was about Water Clarity? Sustaining Lake Tahoe.
Low flying helicopters can be a bit disruptive but really?
The Lake is much quieter than in the 60, 70,s 80,s
I remember the sound of Sea planes Landing and taking off multiple times a day. And the ROAR of drag boats and BIG boats on the Lake all Summer.
I even recall Sonic BOOMS! from Jet fly overs followed by the roar of 4F’s overhead.
It was just part of the ambiance.
Interesting the Article’s intent was to highlight an activity in SLT and it turns into a Ban Choppers flying in the Basin Thread?
Ohh My!
Ahh TRPA Mission statment
I guess this could get into just about anything
” The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency cooperatively leads the effort to preserve, restore and enhance the unique natural and human environment of the Lake Tahoe region now and in the future.”
” If you think that you or anyone else should decide how individuals should enjoy nature”
Where did I express this thought?
Even in your intial post you criticize people for doing things they haven’t. Imaginary people, doing imaginary things.
Beat that strawman.
The noise of earlier decades was bad; it’s true. Add to MTT’s list the blasting as highways were rerouted.
But then it got better. The rules changed re. noise from water craft, including sea planes, and the “ambience” became more one of enjoying the sounds of nature — especially out in the forest.
Now the heavy “whop, whop, whop” of copter blades is no longer just an occasional intrusion. It’s perpetual. And it isn’t just noisy; the vibration enters everything beneath. In my ‘hood, the thing is very nearly overhead on every run. Noise pollution has been shown to take a toll on the nervous system, which is why there’s been such a big effort to reduce noise levels in the past decade or two.
My husband is “blessed” with a hearing impairment which allows him to turn off his hearing aids when a sound annoys him. But it doesn’t work with the helicopters because he’s annoyed by the vibration.
Exactly once in my life, I got to fly out of the basin and see my favorite stomping ground from the air. What a wondrous sight it was! I’ll never forget it. I don’t blame people for wanting to see it, and I don’t blame anyone for wanting to tap people’s interest for the revenue it can generate.
We all have to share this beautiful basin, and compromises do have to be made, but the all-day-nearly-every-day “whop, whop, whop” of these copters is not acceptable to me.
I don’t know enough about flight to know whether gliders can be safely flown over the terrain of interest, but that strikes me as a very pleasant alternative (for all concerned) to helicopters. A compromise might be small planes. Neither gliders or small planes can hover, and I don’t know if that’s one of the reasons these tours use helicopters, but, really, there has to be a sensible solution.
Know Bears, thank you for showing just a little understanding of the “other side” of this discussion. Instead of just attacking people and wanting the TRPA to step in and regulate everything in the Basin, you suggest some good ideas. Perhaps the helicopter company can alter their flight path slightly to be less noisy directly over the city. Moving just a quarter mile offshore would have a big impact. But any change is going to cost them money. There were gliders flying out of the Tahoe Airport for a while about twenty years ago. I would like to see a tour company try to do sightseeing flights in a small plane too but the expense doesn’t pencil out very well. Personally, I just don’t want any more regulations that continue to kill our economy. We can’t survive without tourism and it has some drawbacks that we need to live with. The NIMBY factor cannot be the driver here, IMHO. And the last thing that we should do is encourage more regulation by the TRPA. Again, just my humble opinion. Thanks again for the more sedate approach.
Be involved in a bad car/ski/back-country accident, and hearing the thwump of the rotor blades just may mean you actually have a chance at surviving. I guarantee that may be the sweetest sound you ever heard.
My point is that many of the helicopter flights out of the airport are CalStar rescue flights.
Think its about time to have a faculty here in town not in Reno.
A nice newer one on the kingsbury be used if we had a choice instead having where we have to go crammed down our throats.
OK, now I am offended by the use of the term “whop”… I demand that the TRPA ban the use of that word. ACLU, where are you?
Biggerpicture, I believe that you speak the truth here. Not ALL helicopters are tour helicopters. The CalStar bird flies much lower and with more noise than the tour birds.
Tahoe needs to learn from The Grand Canyon National Park. The Canyon became over run with helicopters and small planes running tours, the noise was terrible. So, they started eliminating tours as permits expired. This company at Tahoe started with one helicopter and now has 3, when will it be enough and what do we tell a new operator?
Cal Star is a life saving helicopter. Yes they are noisy, but they are in and out of the airport fast, and only during emergency, not for hours on end while giving lessons or back and forth over our homes, beaches and forest, giving tours.
Ban the tour operators, embrace Cal Star.
Yes, let’s just ban everything that annoys anyone. That’ll make for a productive world.
As I mentioned above, Tahoe is NOT a national park. It is cities with traffic and people, interspersed with beautiful lakes and rivers and woods and meadows. Why should YOU be able to decide how anyone else is permitted to enjoy it? If you want quiet, go to the Alaskan wilderness. . . oops, never mind. They’ve got all kinds of planes and snowmachines and stuff there too.
Face it: it’s a modern world, with modern stuff. You need to accept the changes.
the modern world has modern stuff.
ban tautologies.
We who are so very fortunate as to be able to live at Tahoe should not be so stingy about sharing it with our visitors.
when buying/renting a home in the vicinity of an airport and you don’t want to hear planes/choppers, it is best to check the airport’s flight pattern before making the decision to move there. If your home is under or near the designated flight pattern area, there’s probably going to be some planes and helicoptors flying by. It’s a shocker, I know!
I wouldn’t move next to a highway or road and expect to be able to limit the number of cars/trucks/harleys that drive on it. and they are all “noise polluters”…
On a side note, this is a great article promoting the tourist/recreation economy the area is moving towards.
For those folks who are happy that these helicopter tours bring tourists and $$ to South Lake Tahoe, please consider that some tourists stopped coming to SLT – noise from planes and helicopters. My family and several friends are in this category. Summer in South Lake Tahoe was just to much noise. But I miss the place very much.
A voluntary Federal Aviation Administration advisory requests that pilots stay more than 2000 feet above ground level when flying over the Desolation Wilderness. The request is meant to prevent noise that could degrade the wilderness experience for other visitors and disturb wildlife.
As a point of information, there are 9 environmental thresholds that TRPA is charged with regulating by its charter. They are:
Air
Noise
Water
Fish
Wildlife
Vegetation
Recreation
Soil
Scenic
Water quality is the most prominent and most recognized, however, it is only one of the 9.
It’s also important to note that historically the FAA has trumped all other entities when it comes to regulating aviation. The FAA has also let it be known that they are willing to spend unlimited amounts of money to have the courts uphold their right to reign supreme on all things related to aviation. So state, local and regional authorities have typically been very careful not to tread on the FAA’s turf when it comes to regulations that affect aircraft. Hence, I wouldn’t expect much action from the TRPA when it comes to regulating helicopter tours.
Much ado about nothing.
If there was such a concern, why are they allowed to do business here in the first place?
You cannot please 100% of the populace 100% of the time. Seems to me that the helicopter business has a right to conduct helicopter tours.
What concerns me more is that this article is written like a paid advertisement for the helicopter operation.
Will LTN do this for other businesses???
‘Will LTN do this for other businesses???’
BShakey, is it required to somehow?
Bshakey, Lake Tahoe News is a privately owned business. Yes its a newspaper, but they can print or not print anything the editor wants. The helicopter ride is unique in Tahoe, so they are supposed to do a story about McDonalds because they did a story about a helicopter ride over Tahoe? Finally, airspace is a public commodity. There is no inherent “right” to borrow airspace that we all own.