Friends of the Inyo is using a 360-degree camera to show our wild backyard in a whole new way. Google for Nonprofits donated rental of this new type of camera, and I ran to the field to test it with an enthusiastic office dog. Google’s donation allows us to create and share scenes of our favorite places and events on their Google Maps platform. Friends of the Inyo also retains full ownership of the images. To test the camera unit we set out walking to one of my favorite quirky locations near Bishop. The unit resembles an upside-down walking stick…
Exploration
On February 13th & 14th, Friends of the Inyo partnered with the Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, Winter Wildlands Alliance, the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center, and the Mammoth Mountain Community Foundation to bring the SnowSchool curriculum to Mammoth Elementary School fifth graders for the second year. We were fortunate to get a quick dusting the night before our first day of SnowSchool. Perfect timing! The 2-3 new inches of snow provided a nice fluffy layer for the students to get used to their snowshoes. Though many had tried them out on the grass around campus during PE, this…
There’s an assumption that summer is our busy season, but in one week this past November, Friends of the Inyo’s staff illustrated how ambitious and inspiring we are at the following events: Presented about the connection between stewardship and advocacy at Winter Wildlands Alliance’s Grassroots Advocacy Conference in Lake Tahoe. Mobilized our members and the public to provide overwhelming opposition to the proposed gold mine at Conglomerate Mesa at the Inyo County Board of Supervisor’s meeting. Took 91 Mammoth Elementary students out for a Fall Field Day for SnowSchool to learn about watersheds and have fun in the Mammoth Lakes…
Partner Profile: David Page of Winter Wildlands Alliance Friends of the Inyo’s Ben Wickham sat down at Mountain Rambler Brewery in Bishop with David Page, Mammoth local and Advocacy Manager for Winter Wildlands Alliance, to talk about SnowSchool, a national education program designed by Winter Wildlands Alliance with 60 sites across the U.S. that educate 30,000 youth each year. For more about SnowSchool, visit SnowSchool’s website. What is SnowSchool? David Page: Snowschool is a program that is developed by Winter Wildlands Alliance and has expanded to about 60 sites, and reaches about 32,000 kids a year. The goal is to…
The Ansel Adams Wilderness Project brought six volunteers into the Shadow Lake area for five days of backcountry trail restoration. Youth volunteer Thomas Zentmyer came along for the community service hours, but went home with an experience he’ll remember forever. Check out his words below, and stay tuned for more stories and photos from the trip. “I’m a frequent visitor to the backcountry, but this trip had scenery like I had never seen before. I would come back from a hard day of work and settle down for dinner, all the while surrounded by the sound of gushing water, golden…
It’s been a lot of fun for us here in the office at Friends of the Inyo to come in on Monday mornings and see pictures and reports from the field. Looks like our Trail Ambassadors Alex and Astra had a particularly good time this weekend while working hard on the TJ Lake Trail in the Mammoth Lakes Basin:
Check out Trail Ambassador Astra’s intellectual exploration of connecting to a place: While leading my third “Wild Harvest” interpretive hike for FOI this summer, one of the participants mused about what’s underfoot. We were three-quarters of a mile up the Parker Bench Trail, pausing in the ecotone between sage steppe and forest riparian corridor. The group had just come to a stand of aspen, and we were discussing the interconnectedness of trees: how a web of fungi in the soil allows trees across species to share nutrients and knowledge amongst themselves for the betterment of the forest writ large. “There’s…
Watching the Trail Ambassadors run the cross cut saw to remove a log from a trail in the Mammoth Lakes Basin put us in an old time kind of mood, so here’s pictures of them working in black and white. Look for the Trail Ambassadors on high country trails this summer, or join them for Trail Work Thursday or an interpretive hike.
For a month now, Friends of the Inyo’s Eastern Sierra Trail Ambassadors have been on the ground, working hard to open up and clear out high country trails after an epic winter. One place they’ve really enjoyed working is Rock Creek and the trails leading out of Little Lakes Valley. On the way up to Ruby Lake, a few Whitebark pine fell across the trail and they spent an afternoon sawing them out. Check out photos below, and look for the Trail Ambassadors out on trails all summer long.