This looks like the best weekend yet for beautiful fall color in the Mono Basin … drop everything and come on over!

Golden cottonwoods line lower Mill Creek, in a capture from the Mono Lake Committee's Mill Creek webcam.

The Sacramento Bee reports that Conway Summit, Lundy Canyon, Lee Vining Canyon, and the June Lake Loop are all at the peak (more…)

Since the last week of June Mono Lake Committee staff and dedicated volunteers have been going into the field each Wednesday to pull invasive plant species at Mill Creek, near County Park, and at Old Marina along the path that leads to the Visitor Center.

Volunteers remove invasive sweet clover at Mill Creek. Photos by Lynette Villagomez.

Myself, fellow intern Max Henkels, and our volunteers were able to assist in clearing the path at Old Marina of invasive (more…)

Mono Lake Intern Lynette Villagomez recording measurements at Mill Creek.

For many Mono Lake interns, one of the main draws of working for the Mono Lake Committee is the opportunity to work outdoors in the Mono Basin. One of the opportunities to do this is the weekly stream monitoring that the Committee carries out at Mill Creek. Mill Creek monitoring, as we call it around the office, is part of the broad effort to track the status of the streamflows and ecology of the five creeks that feed Mono Lake from the Sierra Nevada. (more…)

The Mill Creek WebCam is back in action, and it’s better than ever! It had been down since 5:55pm on Monday, July 4th, after lightning fried the Ethernet port and the router that connected it to the Internet. During the downtime we found a good deal on webcams, so last weekend Geoff was able to install a brand-new camera to keep us updated on Mill Creek. Check out the great image quality of the new cam!

The brand-new Mill Creek WebCam's view south toward Mono Lake.

The other new webcam we bought will be installed at the Scenic Area Visitor Center in the next few months, which will offer a view without pink light streaks, dramatically improving this stunning view of Mono Lake.

Mill Creek, Mono Lake’s third largest tributary stream, is literally running wild! Currently in the midst of its second-highest peak since 1986, the amount of water running down this channel is more than jaw-dropping. At Lundy Lake Reservoir, the water gushing over the dam spillway travels under the road through a culvert to meet the creek on the other side. Currently, this culvert is in danger of being washed out completely due to the incredible amount of water spilling over the dam. If the culvert were to wash out, it could (more…)

Mono Lake Committee interns visit Mill Creek at the Cemetary Road culvert.

Earlier this week, Eastern Sierra Policy Director Lisa Cutting took the Committee’s seasonal staff to the north Mono Basin to learn about the region’s complicated plumbing. They braved rain and sleet to visit Lundy Lake Reservoir, the Lundy power plant, the ditches and waterways that irrigate ranches, and Mill Creek, following the water toward Mono Lake.

On Tuesday afternoon when the group visited Lundy Lake Reservoir, it wasn’t spilling yet, but by Wednesday morning the spillway was full of water and Mill Creek was running at over (more…)

It’s hard to believe summer’s almost over. The air is cooler, the days are shorter, and leaves are beginning to turn brown along the streams of the Mono Basin—but sweet clover and woolly mullein are still flourishing near Mill Creek. This coming Wednesday is your last chance to help make a dent in this season’s population of weeds, and we need all the help we can get.

The fourth and final pulling party of the summer will be held at the Mill Creek culvert on Cemetery Road from 9am to 12pm on Wednesday, September 1st. If you have an hour or two to spare, please drop by to chat, eat snacks, and take down non-native plants.

Over the past two months 56 volunteers have (more…)

Weeding is a remarkably therapeutic activity. It’s easy to fall into a rhythm, letting your mind drift along with the current as you tug at clover roots in a shady nook along Mill Creek’s bank. Every now and then you take a break, settling back with some fresh fruit and cookies (courtesy of the Mono Lake Committee) to admire the view of Gilcrest and Dunderberg flanking Lundy Canyon to the west. After a couple of hours your work is done, and you load the weeds into garbage bags and drive back to the Committee for the most exciting part of the morning: (more…)

After I finished my day’s data collections of stream flows for Mill Creek, I took the time to explore the Mill Creek bottomlands and the Black Point Marsh at the lakeshore. I eagerly hiked down the stream, bushwhacking through sagebrush, stopping to closely observe wildflowers, and frequently crossing the creek to observe curious Killdeer through my borrowed binoculars. Suddenly, completely out of the blue, I stepped onto the pumice sand of the beach and I was in a new world.

Where Mill Creek's water meets Mono Lake.

Not only had I had never seen Mono Lake from this angle, but following the trickle of Mill Creek water into the lake gave my weekly flow measurements and data collections new meaning. I am monitoring (more…)

It was hot and dry down at the Mill Creek culvert last Wednesday — perfect weather for a party! An invasive plant pulling party, that is.  Volunteers and interns enjoyed free snacks and sunshine as we worked, and whenever we needed a break the icy cold creek water invited us to wade right in.  After only two hours the four of us had uprooted sixty pounds of woolly mullein and sweet clover!

Defeating invasive weeds in the Mono Basin may seem like a lost cause, but even an hour or two of pulling can make a huge difference in (more…)