The dog days of summer are here, and wouldn’t you know it, our Trail Ambassadors have hit full gear! We’ve hit the halfway mark of our summer season, and my goodness, things have flown by! From volunteer events and interpretive hikes to backcountry trail work and log-outs with Forest Service partners, our TAs have been busy. Here are just a few highlights of what they’ve been up to since our last edition of the Juniper: Lily Emerson, our TA partnering with the Bridgeport Ranger District of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, has been getting up to a variety of different projects….
Volunteer Events
As the calendar page flips to July, we’ve completed our first official month of Trail Ambassador work in the Inyo & Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forests! Our Trail Ambassadors (TAs) hit the ground running this year and have been out and about working hard. Here are just a few highlights of what they’ve been up to: Lily Emerson, our TA partnering with the Bridgeport Ranger District of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, took two volunteers out to Eagle Creek in the Hoover Wilderness to monitor for invasive weeds in the area. Over their three-day/two-night trip, they found no weeds above 8,300 feet in…
Earth Day Clean-Up Event with Inyo350 a Success On Saturday, April 24th, over 50 volunteers came together in Bishop to celebrate Earth Day, give back, and pick up trash. Inyo350, the Sierra Trash Eliminators, Eastern Sierra Land Trust, Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association, and Friends of the Inyo joined forces to provide trash-grabbers, trash bags, gloves, safety vests, and plenty of good cheer to make sure the volunteers who joined the fun were fully equipped and ready to go. After a safety talk and last grab of coffee and pastries, folks geared up and headed out to locations across Bishop to…
Trail Ambassador Program Receives National Forest Foundation Grant In March, as spring arrived and the Worm full moon hung large in the sky, Friends of the Inyo received the exciting news that our National Forest Foundation (NFF) grant application to help fund our Trail Ambassador program was successful! This $47,000 grant is a huge boon to our ability to staff the Inyo, Humboldt-Toiyabe, and Sierra National Forest lands in the Eastern Sierra with five Trail Ambassadors this season. In addition to myself and Lindsay Butcher, we are going to be able to hire three additional staff members to provide…
Friends of the Inyo’s 2020 Backcountry Ranger Intern for the US Forest Service Each year Friends of the Inyo funds an intern for the Sierra National Forest with a generous donation from Rick Kattelmann and Sally Gaines. We are proud of the work and perspectives gained by David Carpenter in 2020 through his participation in the program. Read more about David and his experience with the Sierra National Forest below: Reflections on 2 Months in the High Sierra I always was a man of the wilderness. I was born in Denver, Colorado, and grew up not far away in Golden,…
Friends of the Inyo was onsite to lend trash bags and tools for a socially distanced volunteer clean up day organized by the Bishop Area Climbers Coalition. Click here to see beautiful pictures by Gayla Wolf featured in The Sheet on November 21st. Thank you again to the Bishop Area Climbers Coalition for inviting us to take part in their creative and fun clean up event.
Summer Stewardship Shaping Up for 2020 Hello from the wide world of all things Stewardship! Things have been touch and go as of late, with the pandemic throwing our plans into uncertainty since the beginning of March. Our plans have changed seemingly every couple of weeks or so, but now we’ve entered a welcome state of solid ground for what we can expect our work to look like this summer with regards to our stewardship program. Below are some updates of what stewardship and programmatic offerings will be this summer: Thanks to grants from the National Wilderness Stewardship Alliance and…
In early March of 2020, Stewardship Director Alex Ertaud sat down with Adam Barnett, the Inyo National Forest’s Assistant Public Services Staff Officer. This conversation dives deep into the ins and outs of the two organization’s working relationship. It is always a pleasure to chat with Adam and I hope you enjoy! Alex Ertaud, Stewardship Director: I am here with Adam Barnett, of the Forest Service. Thank you for sitting down with me Adam. Just to start things off, when was the first time you came to the Eastern Sierra? And I guess in this case, the Inyo National Forest….
Thank you volunteers for helping Friends of the Inyo make a difference Friends of the Inyo volunteer projects in 2019 engaged 457 volunteers for 1,316 hours of work on our Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands. We removed a total of 1,615 pounds of trash, restored 52 improper fire rings, cleaned trash from 24 campsites, and restored 40 illegal campsites. Thank you to all of our public lands volunteers, We couldn’t do our important work without you!
Introducing the Bishop Area Climbing Rangers This winter and spring, the Bishop Area Climbers Coalition, the Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association, and Friends of the Inyo are thrilled to introduce the two Climbing Rangers who will work on our public lands this coming climbing season. These positions were created in partnership with the local Bureau of Land Management and United States Forest Service offices and staffs, and these rangers will be able to do a great deal of tangible, valuable, and much needed work. They will be a presence on the ground in the climbing areas in and around Bishop, taking…