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FOI offers community events year-round, throughout Inyo and Mono Counties, from Bridgeport to Lone Pine. Unless otherwise indicated, most events have a cap and require registration, so interested participants are encouraged to RSVP as soon as they know they will be attending a hike or volunteering opportunity to reserve their spot. Every attendee must register individually (children under 18 must be registered by an adult) at FriendsoftheInyo.org/Events to obtain specific date/time, where-to-meet, what-to-bring, and other safety and physical exertion details unique to each event, as well as to help us control group sizes to prevent environmental degradation.
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Friends of the Inyo is hosting the 24/25 Backcountry Film Festival in Bishop December 14th! |
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Join us for a night full of winter inspired stories curated by the Winter Wildlands Alliance. The 20th annual film lineup will screen short films about: athletic pursuit in the mountains, artistic vision, friendship, and how the snowsports community is adapting to change. |
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| Proceeds go to SnowSchool: an outdoor education program offered to local elementary schools.
Purchase Your Tickets Here When:
Thursday, December 12th @ the Mammoth Lakes Welcome Center Auditorium Hosted by Sierra Forever Mammoth Lakes 12/12 Thursday Night Tickets: |
Saturday, December 14th @ the Bishop Twin Theater. Doors open at 6:00pm. Films start by 7pm. Hosted By Friends of the Inyo Bishop 12/14 Saturday Night Tickets: |
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There will be pizza available by the slice and local brews on tap, so be sure to bring your reusable vessel or purchase one of Friends of the Inyo's fancy steel cups there!
In addition to the viewing of awesome films, we will have sweet raffle prizes from sponsors near and far to get you geared up for your own adventures! Sponsors include: Patagonia, Swix, LMNT hydration, Mammoth Mountaineering, Looney Bean, Sierra Nevada Brewing ... more to come! |
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Pinyon Pine Health Blitz
Our last Pinyon Health surveying event, in honor of California Biodiversity Day in September, was such a success we are doing another one before winter sets in!
Calling all citizen scientists: We need your help for a pinyon pine health blitz– a morning of surveying the health of an often overlooked, but nonetheless critical, ecosystem, the beautiful pinyon pine woodlands. Friends of the Inyo and researchers with the PiCCA project will be hosting a survey day in the Bodie Hills to help inform their research on Pinyon Pines and get Eastern Sierra residents involved in the study of, and advocacy for, our local woodlands.
Join us for fun and science in the Bodie Mountain Wilderness Study Area on November 9th: |
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Alabama Gates 2024 is a weekend of FREE community events in Lone Pine, California, November 15 – 17, 2024, commemorating the centennial of the Alabama Gates Occupation. This significant historical event occurred when the people of Owens Valley non-violently seized the Los Angeles Aqueduct’s control gates just north of Lone Pine on November 16, 1924, diverting the entire flow of the aqueduct into the historic Owens River channel in protest of the City of Los Angeles’ aggressive land acquisition and water harvesting activities within the valley that began with the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The 1924 Alabama Gates occupation evolved into a multi-day community picnic as 700 Owens Valley residents gathered in solidarity with the occupiers over four days.
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Our event marks this legendary act of civil disobedience, which reverberated worldwide, illuminating these two regions’ complicated and intertwined water history. But it also reflects how white settlers had previously confiscated and occupied Payahüünadü, the ancestral lands of the Paiute and Shoshone People in what is now called Owens Valley, along with the repercussions of this settler colonialism on contemporary Tribal residents who continue to live here.
Our November 2024 event include a free-to-the-public roundtable discussion series at Statham Hall, Lone Pine’s Inyo County-administered community center. Our three two-hour panels scheduled over two days feature renowned Owens Valley historian John Walton, author of Western Times and Water Wars (UC Press, 1993) with Dr. Sophia Borgias, a human-environment geographer whose research focuses on Owens Valley Indigenous water rights, moderated by Jon Klusmire, journalist and former director of the Eastern California Museum; a panel with Payahüünadü Tribal representatives moderated by Dr. Sophia Borgias; and an environmentally-focused roundtable discussion with leaders from four non-profit Owens Valley conservation groups. Other free weekend events include an opening reception, a no-host community picnic at Lone Pine’s Spainhower Park featuring local food truck concessionaires, film screenings at Lone Pine’s Museum of Western Film History, and an interpretive walking tour with a local naturalist at Patsiata (Owens Lake).
This event is produced by There It Is—Take It! in partnership with Sierra Forever (formerly ESIA). Event partners include Friends of the Eastern California Museum (FECM), Museum of Western Film History, Owens Valley Committee (OVC), Owens Valley Indian Water Commission (OVIWC), Sierra Club Range of Light Group, and Friends of the Inyo.
Register for events using the Eventbrite link at the very bottom of this post, or simply click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/alabama-gates-2024-nov-15-17-2024-3712969 |
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Volunteers Needed: Citizen Science Collecting Data, Monitoring the Solitude of the Eastern Sierra
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You enjoy your moments alone in the Eastern Sierra, right? So do many others. Millions of others, actually. Every year.
Well, the U.S. Forest Service wants to make sure everyone visiting our wilderness areas has opportunities for solitude. It all begins with research, and Friends of the Inyo is assisting. And for that, we need YOU! Help Friends of the Inyo conduct visitor data collection for the Forest Service in various designated Wildernesses on the Inyo National Forest.
What you will be doing: Hiking specific trails in specific areas recording how many other people you encounter, that’s it! It is called Solitude Monitoring, and it helps inform the Forest Service on trail quotas, usage, and how well the “Wilderness Character” of a place is being managed. We need a wide variety of data: various days (weekdays vs. weekends vs. holidays) and usage over various months (April-November).
Where: The following is a list of specific Trails and Trail Sections for which we need to collect data. Please only submit records for these specific trails. |
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South Sierra - PCT, South Sierra south- from the Kennedy Meadows wilderness boundary to Clover Meadow
- PCT, South Sierra north- from Clover Meadow to the Golden Trout wilderness boundary
- Olancha Pass- from the wilderness boundary to the PCT
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Lundy Canyon- from the wilderness boundary to the end of the maintained trail.
- Gardisky Lake Trail- from the wilderness boundary to the end of the trail.
- 20 Lakes Basin Loop- from the wilderness boundary, the whole loop (not the trail around Saddlebag Lake).
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Inyo Mountains - Seephole Spring- off of Mazourka Canyon Road, from the wilderness boundary to the end of the trail.
- Tamarack Canyon- off of Mazourka Canyon Road, from the wilderness boundary to the end of the trail.
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| Boundary Peak - Boundary Peak Route- the user created trail from Queen Canyon to the summit of Boundary Peak.
- Trail Canyon- from the wilderness boundary to the end of the system trail.
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Are you excited about helping out?! Contact Friends of the Inyo’s Stewardship Director, Lindsay Butcher, at Lindsay@friendsoftheinyo.org. She will be happy to answer any questions and help you get started! Below is the monitoring protocol to follow, so you get an idea of what is involved.
– Download this document so you can see what the very simple monitoring form looks like.
– Here are the monitoring maps to help you.
1. At the beginning of each monitoring session, record initial information at the top of the form including: - The monitoring area name
- The observer’s name
- The date
- The time when data collection started
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Whether data are being collected on a weekday, weekend, or holiday
2. Tally the number of people encountered within the monitoring area. Count all people seen or heard, no matter how close or far you are from them. If you hike past a camping group, include the number of people you see as traveling encounters (this includes administrative or outfitted camps – the idea is to document the impacts to visitors’ experiences).
a. If you can’t get an exact count of the number of people, make your best estimate.
b. If you see the same group more than once during a monitoring session, record the number of people as another (new) encounter if more than 15 minutes have passed since the first time you saw the group. 3. At the end of the monitoring session, fill out the final information on the form: -
Record the time when data collection for this monitoring session stopped
- Calculate the total amount of time during which data were collected
- Record the total number of people encountered
Then you would simply submit recorded trail data to Lindsay by using the email address above and including “Solitude Monitoring ’24” in the the subject line. That’s it! We hope you will help us during your meanderings of discovery in any of these areas anytime between now and November. For the sake of Wilderness…and Solitude! | |
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Thank you all who wrote in and made your voices heard: LADWP retracted the deep aquifer groundwater pumping documentation (Notice of Exemption/Notice of Determination) from the Inyo County Clerk on October 8, 2024. and has stated that any forthcoming proposed well replacement project will be subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
While we know this attempt to pump from the deep well aquifer is likely far from over, we want to thank everyone who spoke out and made it clear that this project could not go under the radar as is, without proper public notice and environmental review. You have been heard!
Background: At the beginning of the month, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) attempted to slide new, deeper wells into the 1991 Environmental Impact Report with an addendum claiming these wells were “replacements” not needing further environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act. Their environmental reports page said public review ended Friday October 11th, yet there was no page or place given for the public to offer comments. Friends of the Inyo posted an action alert calling for members of the public to write in via email to express concern over not only this new concerning strategy of deep aquifer groundwater pumping, but also the sneaky way in which this project was not properly vetted environmentally or publicly.
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The Bodie Hills Conservation Partnership Fall Edition of the Quarterly Newsletter is Here! |
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Friends of the Inyo in the Community |
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| Friends of the Inyo’s Forest and Water Policy Director, Allison Weber, recently joined the Mammoth Lakes Chamber of Commerce, of which Friends of the Inyo is a proud member, to help host Career Exploration Day at Mammoth High School.
Allison was happy to represent not only as a local environmental conservation professional, but also as a former Mammoth High School alum herself. Allison led a session on how to read a job description and interview, letting students mock interview her for a job and give feedback on her responses. The students and the school were engaged and welcoming, and Friends of the Inyo hopes to join similar future events with the Mammoth Lakes Chamber of Commerce and other local Eastern Sierra chambers we are fortunate enough to belong to.
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Sierra Nevada Conservation Conference
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Sierra Nevada Conservation Conference happening in South Lake Tahoe on November 8.
Friends of the Inyo's Executive Director Wendy Schneider will be speaking at the Sierra Nevada Conservation Conference on Nov. 8, 2024 to highlight FOI's work defending our lands from water and gold extraction threats. For more information, please visit Sierra Nevada Conservation Conference website.
Programming includes:
Building a Resilient Future: The Intersection of Conservation, Wildfire Mitigation, Water Management, and Justice in the 30x30 Initiative. A conversation with California Natural Resources Agency, The Fire Restoration Group, Point Blue Conservation Science, and UC Davis Native American Studies Department.
Building Equity in Conservation & Outdoors Access. A conversation with 40 Acre Conservation League, Hispanic Access Foundation, Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, and Dunlap Band of Mono Indians.
Sustainable Recreation Roundtable. Join us for a roundtable discussion on how we can better coordinate and interweave programs to scale up sustainable recreation across the Sierra Nevada.
Reconnecting Critical Landscapes. Learn how Wildlands Network is collaborating to connect California's Sierra Nevada from Lassen to Yosemite. Grassroots Advocacy to Protect Important Landscapes from Development Threats. Presentations from Friends of the Inyo and Sierra Watch.
Increasing Capacity in Forest Health through Collaboration: Presentations from California Association of Resource Conservation Districts and Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Supporting Ecological Preservation through Community Participation. Presentations from The League to Save Lake Tahoe and FUNDIS. Case Studies in Innovation for Combating Catastrophic Wildfire. Presentations from Ecofirebuster and Phoenix Energy. |
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Adopt a Wild Horse or Burro from the Ridgecrest Bureau of Land Management
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The corral facility is located on 80 acres of withdrawn Navy and BLM lands, four miles east of Ridgecrest on the Randsburg-Wash Road off California Highway 178. It is available for individual and group tours and has a two-track dirt perimeter road that allows visitors to get a quality view of the animals. If driving, a vehicle with high clearance is recommended.
Adoptions are by appointment or during scheduled open house events, typically 7-9 a.m. July-September, and 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. October-June, on the first and third Fridays of each month. Check the event schedule for dates and times, cancellations or postponements of events will be announced on social media.
Contact Ridgecrest Regional Wild Horse and Burro Facility for more information about the Wild Horse and Burro program or to make an adoption appointment. Ridgecrest Regional Wild Horse and Burro Facility
3647-A Randsburg Wash Road
Trona, CA 93562 Phone: 760 384 5765
Toll-free: 800-951-8720 E-mail: blm_ca_ridgecrestcorrals@blm.gov |
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Want to support Friends of the Inyo? Consider making a donation online today!
Or help us Grow Our Circle of Friends...of the Inyo! by purchasing a membership for a friend or loved one.
Thank you for your generous support. |
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Friends of the Inyo appreciates the following organizations and local businesses for their generous sponsorship of our programs: |
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| | Inyo Mono Alpine County
CATTLEMEN'S ASSOCIATION |
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Main Office:
621 W. Line St., Suite 201
Bishop, CA 93514
Satellite Office:
142 E. Bush St. Lone Pine, CA 93545
Visit us online:
FriendsoftheInyo.org
Write to us:
info@friendsoftheinyo.org
Call us: (760) 873-6500 Like and follow us on social media: |
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