July 21, 2000
Twice-Weekly Lee Vining Creek Walks Explore a Restoring Stream
Press Contact:
Heidi Hopkins, Policy Director
Mono Lake Committee
(760) 647-6595
www.monolake.org
For Immediate Release
Bright Yellow Warblers sing, brown trout hide in the shade of regenerating willows and cottonwoods, and Sierra Rein Orchids flower along the banks of a now-singing Lee Vining Creek. The public is invited to join the twice-weekly naturalist walks down this restoring stream. The walks are sponsored by the Mono Lake Committee.
For nearly fifty years, water that had flowed down Lee Vining Creek into Mono Lake was diverted 350 miles south to the City of Los Angeles. Without water the creek became a barren, cobbled wasteland, while Mono Lake shrunk to half its volume and doubled in salinity. Not only were the birds who rely on the lake's rich food supply for their annual migration endangered, but the historic trout fisheries and once lush streamside vegetation were thought to be forever lost.
You can experience the rebirth of this beautiful Eastern Sierra creek, as water now flows again down Lee Vining Creek into a rising Mono Lake.
Walk with a Mono Lake Committee naturalist along the Lee Vining Creek trail and learn how people are helping the creek and the lake recover. Come and learn about the wildflowers and rejuvenating creek-side forest, re-established trout and their insect food, the history of the local Kutzedika'a Paiutes, and the ongoing restoration work helping Mother Nature heal past damages and rebuild a shattered ecosystem.
Recovery is not an instant, just-add-water process. Today, bank-side cottonwoods and willows are still young, planted pines barely reach to your knee, and the river is still re-finding its course down its broad floodplain. The stream is in the early years of what will be a fifty-year healing process of restoring a shaded, cottonwood-willow riparian forest along a healthy, living creek.
These free two hour, 2.5 mile walks leave at 9:30 a.m., every Saturday and Monday, from the Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Center just north of Lee Vining on Highway 395. The Mono Lake Committee also offers canoe tours of Mono Lake every weekend morning, and free naturalist walks at the South Tufa Area just off Highway 120 East at 6 p.m. everyday. For more information, please call (760) 647-6595. See you at the Creek!
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