Short Take: A First for Fallen Leaf

Visitors to Lake Tahoe’s southwest basin (including Desolation Wilderness and Fallen Leaf Lake, home of Stanford Sierra Camp) can soon find in area bookshops, a comprehensive field guide to the region’s flora and fauna—450-plus species—and other natural wonders. Replete with hundreds of photographs and drawings, A Nature Guide to the Southwest Tahoe Basin (available Memorial Day weekend) was written by naturalist Charles Quinn, ’94, with chapters on geology, fire, medicinal plants and lake ecology by Rebecca Chaplin, ’02. The nonprofit project, funded by Peter, ’55, and Helen Bing, had Stanford written all over it: some dozen alumni helped put it together. Quinn, who works for The Nature Conservancy in Eugene, Ore., was the obvious author: he first visited Sierra Camp at age 1 and served as its longest-term naturalist.