What is Stewardship?
Careful and responsible management of public land in trust for future generations.
Friends of the Inyo’s important role
We work hard with federal agencies including the Inyo National Forest and Bureau of Land Management sustaining healthy public lands. Join us to ensure quality experiences for all by doing work that needs to get done! Our stewardship includes a long history of trail maintenance, habitat restoration, facilities upkeep, and special projects with volunteers and paid staff.
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Stewardship Updates
Read some exciting progress notes from our Trail Ambassadors, with an introduction and post-note from Stewardship Director Lindsay Butcher. It is hard to believe, but here we are- already halfway through the Trail Ambassador season! My how time zips by… Despite the multiple false starts of summer and the ongoing damage control from winter, our TAs have been up to some awesome work alongside our Forest Service partners. Here are some highlights from their last month of work. From Logan, TA on the Mt. Whitney Ranger District of the Inyo National Forest: My Favorite day this month- Overnight in the Eastern…
Pine nuts, a high-energy food, helped sustain Native peoples of the Eastern Sierra through the winter. Friends of the Inyo’s annual impact report, which we usually release at mid-year to celebrate the previous year’s accomplishments, is symbolically named thus to acknowledge the support of our donors, funders, and volunteers, whose generosity sustains our work of protecting and caring for the land and water of the Eastern Sierra.
With our typical season timeline pushed back this year, we are a bit delayed in getting our first month of the Trail Ambassador season in the books. Despite all of the roadblocks (figurative and literal) we’ve hit the ground running! We’ve asked the TAs to give us a quick summary of their first impressions. Here’s what they have to say: Logan: Mt. Whitney RD I have been working with the USFS Mt. Whitney Rangers on local trails such as Mt. Whitney, Kennedy Meadows, Kearsarge Pass, Cottonwood Lakes. Lately there has been a lot of trail reporting. With this year’s heavy snowfall,…
By Lindsay Butcher, Stewardship Director The winter of 2022-2023 has been a doozy! As of the day I’m writing this blurb in late March, we are inching closer and closer to an all-time record snowpack, just shy of the 1952 record, with more precipitation on the way! This means we’ve had to be, well…flexible, to say the least, about managing our usual season of low-elevation Stewardship Events. Starting in November with the American Alpine Club’s Bishop Craggin’ Classic: The original project site was covered in 3 inches of snow the week before. Friends of the Inyo was able to pivot at…
Death Valley National Park needs hearty citizen science volunteers to help with annual monitoring of endemic plant species at the Eureka Dunes. This is a great activity for giving back to nature during Earth Day Month! Monitoring will be strenuous, requiring climbing to the tops of tall dunes and hiking up to five miles each day. Volunteers are encouraged to commit to an entire four-day monitoring period if possible. You can choose from the following dates: April 10-13, April 17-20, or April 24-27. At least two volunteers are needed for each four-day volunteer assignment. Volunteers will camp with park staff…
By Lindsay Butcher, Stewardship Director SnowSchool is the nation’s largest on-snow winter ecology education program, with more than 30,000 annual participants at 60 sites across the United States. Developed by Winter Wildlands Alliance (WWA) to introduce underserved K-12 students to snow science and the wonder of winter landscapes, SnowSchool combines hands-on science education with snowshoe-powered outdoor exploration. The kiddos learn what the water cycle is and the part humans play in it, what our local watershed looks like and where we get our water from, where it goes, winter adaptations of animals/humans/plants, water-snow equivalency, and how to dig a snow…
