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As Summer Nears, Historic Winter Still Grips State’s High Country

Winter is horning in on summer in the California mountains, where a stubborn blanket of snow is preventing several high-country camps from opening just as swarms of seasonal sojourners are itching to head for the hills. Summer officially begins Wednesday, but the historic storms that rolled through this winter deposited so much snow in the Sierra, Cascade and Siskiyou ranges that roads are still being plowed, tent sites are still being dug out and damage is still being assessed.

OPINION: Dam Safety Records Should Be Public

Since the tallest dam in the United States threatened California with catastrophe last winter, state officials have responded with policies to stanch the flow not just of water but of information. The latest example is the Legislature’s vote to exempt a whole class of crucial information about dams from the state’s public-records law. A provision in the recesses of a lengthy budget-related bill requested by the governor and passed by both houses last week could prevent public and press access to plans for responding to dam emergencies.