Number 5 on our Top Ten highlights list is the the Trail Chic fashion show fundraiser for the Committee’s Outdoor Experiences program.

Mono Lake Intern Max Henkels walked the runway as the invasive weed, sweet clover. Photo by Lynette Villagomez.

This is really one of those events that you’ve got to see to believe. The Mono Lake Committee pairs up with Barefoot Wine & (more…)

Number 6 on our Top Ten highlights list are all the local kids who explored their Mono Basin backyard with the Committee’s Outdoor Experiences program.

OE Instructor Jessica Francois (in hat) teaches Lee Vining Elementary students about Lee Vining Creek. Photo by Santiago Escruceria.

Between creek walks, watershed studies, watering trees, sketching wildlife, planting saplings at school, and birding, Lee Vining’s students really got out there! Take a look: (more…)

For science! Students reach the top of Panum Crater on a chilly November day. Photo by Bartshe Miller.

The temperature was maybe 30 degrees Fahrenheit in the sun, but the wind made it feel much colder. Students, used to much warmer temperatures, shook off the cold and hiked up one of the Mono Basin’s most dramatic classrooms: Panum Crater.

Hosted by the Mono Lake Committee and Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), these 12 students came from Los Angeles for a week of programs and activities at the Mono Basin Outdoor Education Center (OEC). After (more…)

For some, half the fun of hiking is the fact that you can wear your favorite worn-out T-shirt with the holes in the shoulders and those faded shorts at the bottom of the drawer. For others, there’s “Trail Chic.”

Trail chic: [treyl sheek] adjective
Fashionable while recreating outdoors; stylish: “That is a seriously trail chic outfit.“

Trail chic: [treyl sheek] noun
Style and elegance, especially in dress: “Eastside residents have such trail chic.”

Trail Chic: [treyl sheek] the event
A fashion show fundraiser for the Committee’s Bus Money Fund to help students get to Mono Lake for outdoor education programs

It’s funky, it’s fun, it’s your friends in a fashion show on a green-carpet runway that you don’t want to miss:

Friday, July 27, 2012 at 7:30pm at the Lee Vining Community Center.

Generously sponsored by Barefoot Wine & Bubbly, there will (more…)

This past Thursday, March 8, the Mono Lake Committee hosted SYRCL’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Los Angeles. The event took place at The Landmark West Los Angeles and was a fun-filled evening with a great selection of inspirational environmental and adventure films.

Lively discussions followed the premiere of The Mono Lake Story at intermission. Mono Lake Committee Board member Vireo Gaines chatted with festival attendees at the Landmark Theater West Los Angeles. Photo by Arya Degenhardt.

This was the LA premiere of the Committee’s new film, The Mono Lake Story. Recently accepted into the Colorado Environmental Film Festival, Sedona International Film Festival, Sun Valley Film Festival, and the Reel Earth Environmental Film Festival, we were very excited to show this film in LA to our members, Board, and lots of (more…)

Mono Lake Committee Outdoor Experiences Manager Santiago Escruceria gives everyone a nickname. Beyer High School senior Tom Rydquist’s was “Mr. Muffin.”

In December 2011 the California Museum and Comcast announced that Rydquist won the Northern California Grand Prize in their Dreamers Challenge for a video he produced. His video “Funding the American Dream: Helping California Lead the Way in Water Reclamation”  suggests a fee on sewage utilities to create water recycling programs. You can see Rydquist’s video here.

Beyer High School senior Tom Rydquist, left, monitoring water quality at Mono Lake with his classmates. Photo by Santiago Escruceria.

Along with fellow Beyer students from Modesto and their teacher Kay Myers, Mr. Muffin (more…)

The Committee’s Outdoor Experiences program began in 1994 with visits from two community-based organizations: Mothers of East Los Angeles, Santa Isabel and the Los Angeles Conservation Corps—who were part of the water conservation toilet retrofit program in LA. Who would have imagined that in 2011 we would host 20 groups from Los Angeles and beyond at the Outdoor Education Center here in the Mono Basin? In the program, participants are empowered through work on personal growth and community-oriented activities to build an understanding and appreciation for the Mono Basin/Los Angeles watershed. Through education programs and muscle-powered recreational activities, participants learn that balanced solutions are possible for (more…)

Invasive plant species removal is nothing if not a gigantic task—which is where a whole lot of good, old-fashioned, hands-on restoration stewardship comes in. In 2011 volunteers came out of the woodwork to help tackle the problem of invasive plant species (as well as tree-watering and garbage pick-up)—from participants in the Outdoor Experiences program to the official Mono Lake Volunteers to a group of staff from the Reno Patagonia store to spontaneous local and visiting family volunteers and Mono Lake (more…)

The Mono Lake Committee’s Outreach Staff, along with the Outdoor Experiences Program Manager, are gathering in the Los Angeles area to start a two-week visit to local schools and community based organizations in preparation for the 2011 Outdoor Experiences season here at Mono Lake.

Outdoor Experiences students from Urban Semillas enjoy time at Mono Lake last summer. Photo by Rosa Brey.

Every year, the OE staff visits these groups, presents a slide show, and does a “question and answer” period for the groups so that leaders, teachers, participants, and students (more…)