I was lucky enough to spend the summers of 2007 and 2008 Lee Vining volunteering and interning with the Mono Lake Committee, but this summer is exceptionally memorable. During a cold and windy morning of interpretive training down at South Tufa early this summer, we were amazed to see the most foam any of us had ever witnessed at Mono Lake.

Foam can appear on the shoreline because the lake’s unique chemical composition includes natural surfactants that reduce the surface tension necessary to hold bubbles together. In layman’s terms, Mono Lake’s soapy-feeling water acts like soap and can bubble up considerably when mixed, such as when 30-mile-an-hour gusts reach the normally calm shoreline.

For years I’ve heard of the immense flocks of phalaropes that grace Mono Lake with their synchronized flocks. This summer, our canoe and walking tours were exceptionally special because of a few thousand special guests at South Tufa and Navy Beach. For one reason or another the phalaropes picked (more…)

Last Wednesday afternoon brought a second hour of engaging ideas to the Mono Lake Committee’s Theater & Gallery, as US Forest Service Senior Scientist Connie Millar gave a provocative and fascinating talk on mountain ecology and climate change; a topic which she has artfully christened “Mountain Climecology.”

The aim of her talk was to illustrate the difficult task of predicting what kinds of ecological changes might result from fluctuations in global temperature and changing climate patterns, and how accepted wisdom about the effects on plants and animals needs to be carefully tested in the field.

Dr. Millar, faced with only 45 minutes to explain and defend her argument, chose several examples from her own research on mountain ecology to illustrate her point. One example was (more…)

The Tioga Pass Run is only a few weeks away! You can register online until September 6 or register in person on race day in front of the Mono Lake Committee Information Center & Bookstore starting at 6:30am.

This year marks the 32nd year of the run, a great tradition that benefits the Mono Lake Committee. Both runners and walkers are welcome, and they need (more…)

The Sacramento Bee has been investigating the millions of dollars that were set aside and covered up by Sacramento administrators of the state park system. The initial news led to the resignation of State Park Director Ruth Coleman; over the past weekend the Bee reported more details.

Official investigation reports are still pending and will reveal (more…)

Poetry in Motion

A draft from the bookstore entrance
drifts by
grabbing hanging broadsides
to breathe life into their words.

A flying flock, bristly branches, straying streams
take place of print and paper.

Twisting, rustling, back, forth, up and down:
silent unless provoked
art, poetry, movement are married.

Still lives need not apply.

Brief though it be
in the Theater & Gallery
lives true poetry in motion.

—Jessica Horn, Mono Lake Committee Information Center & Bookstore Manager

Join us for the opening of Poetry & Place: Tuolumne Meadows Broadside Project—poetry inspired art and design by Jim Cokas in the Mono Lake Committee Theater & Gallery, August 20, 2012 at 4:00pm.

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On August 1, the Mono Lake Committee was treated to a rich and erudite presentation on the future of the Owens Lake—the first in our annual series of speakers titled “Refreshments with Refreshing ‘Ologists.”

Those familiar with the history of Mono Lake will know that before the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) extended their aqueduct to the Mono Basin, their main source of water was Owens Lake; located 60 miles south of the Mono Basin along Highway 395. But between 1913 and the early 1930s Owens Lake was drained with such abandon that by the mid-1930s all that remained was miles of dry lake floor and a rough coastal skeleton of the former lake. Having extinguished Owens Lake, DWP began work (more…)

Have you ever visited Panum Crater in the Mono Basin? If not, you may want to take advantage of the free Panum Crater walks that are made possible by volunteers such as Rich Foye.

Anyone who has spent an afternoon at South Tufa will be familiar with Panum Crater—the youngest volcano in the Mono Craters, which stretches to the southeast of Mono Lake and forms the base of what was once Mono’s shore. Visitors are often shocked to learn that Panum Crater is the result of a volcanic explosion that took place only six hundred years ago, rising up from the basin floor at the same moment that (more…)

This summer is turning out to be drier than expected. Preliminary data for April–July show Lee Vining Creek runoff is about 1,000 acre-feet short of the 17,900 acre-feet (53% of average) forecast, Rush Creek runoff about 2,000 acre-feet short of the 23,400 acre-feet (49%) forecast, and Parker Creek runoff about 600 acre-feet short of the 3,400 acre-foot (62%) forecast. Only Walker Creek appears to be on target with its 1,300 acre-foot (42%) prediction—notably the lowest forecast of the four creeks. (more…)

Each May, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) submits its annual compliance report to the State Water Resources Control Board. This report contains not only compliance reporting, but the reports from the previous year’s lake and stream monitoring.

Some highlights from the 2011 monitoring include:

• Brine shrimp abundance peaked at over 40,000 shrimp per square meter for seven of the last eight years. This level was only exceeded in five other years during the 1980s (monitoring began in 1982). But it has happened almost every year since 2004.
• The “centroid” of the brine shrimp distribution over time has peaked earlier and earlier each year—as Mono Lake’s salinity has declined, the shrimp have (more…)

Please take a moment to send a letter to the California Department of Transportation today—now is the time to make your voice heard for a safe, ecologically-sound project!

The Lee Vining Rockfall Safety Project has the potential to solve old eroding roadcuts next to Mono Lake but only if Caltrans combines permanent slope stabilization with aggressive and guaranteed revegetation measures. Otherwise, a poorly-conceived (more…)