Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

Volunteers help to keep the Mono Basin beautiful

Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

This post was written by Gabrielle Renteria, 2015 Bookstore Assistant, 2016 Mono Lake Intern, 2016–2018 Project Specialist.

Yesterday Mono Lake Committee staff joined forces with three volunteers to help maintain the beauty of the Mono Basin on our Adopt-A-Highway cleanup.

Project Specialists Robbie and Gabby with safety gear and trash grabbers! Photo courtesy of John Warneke.

We met early and headed to our mile-long adopted section of Highway 395. It was a beautiful blustery day. Lucky for us, the wind meant that the pesky no-see-ums wouldn’t bother us. It was great to walk along the highway and see the many plants beginning to bloom; bitterbrush, lupine, and monkeyflowers were a welcome sight after what felt like an endless winter.

After hours of fighting with unruly, windswept bags the highway was all cleaned up. In total we collected about eight bags of trash and lots of recyclables.

Thank you to the volunteers for making this project possible! If you are interested in becoming a Mono Lake volunteer or joining us for our next highway clean-up day contact Jessica at (760) 647-6595.