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…)

On July 24th the Mono Lake Committee and Barefoot Wine & Bubbly held a fashion show fundraiser for the Outdoor Experiences Program. There was a great turnout for a fun show featuring locals strutting down an astroturf runway in the Lee Vining Community Center.

Trail Chic 2010 models.

Trail Chic is a fundraiser for the Outdoor Experiences program, specifically to raise money for the Bus Money Fund, which helps Los Angeles youth with transportation costs of getting to Mono Lake. Quite often we find school groups, youth groups, and community groups that (more…)

The Urban Semillas group reaches the top of Lembert Dome. Photo by Michael Clausen.

“Take small steps,” said Santiago Escruceria, the Outdoor Experiences Manager, “that’s the trick to hiking on a steeper slope without losing lots of energy,” and the group took it to heart, suddenly looking like the experienced hikers that we knew they could be.

The group that came to participate in the Mono Lake Committee’s Outdoor Experiences program during the first week of July was composed of high school graduates and kids in their early-20s from Los Angeles. They were all a part of a program called Urban Semillas, a young adult program that teaches students about water and trees, people’s relationship with nature, where their water comes from, and that nature isn’t something that you just see on TV—it’s real—and when they visit places like Yosemite and Mono Lake, it’s ALL around them.

We were hiking to Lembert Dome and Dog Lakes, two places that neither I nor the group had ever been to, so we were all (more…)

I hope you’ll be in Lee Vining this Saturday for the first ever Trail Chic fashion show at the Lee Vining Community Center. It’s a fashion show fundraiser for the Mono Lake Committee’s Outdoor Experiences program.

When: 7:30pm, Saturday, July 24th, 2010
Where: Lee Vining Community Center
What: A fashion show featuring wines & bubbly by Barefoot, a silent auction, and raffle
Admission: Free!

Yes, it’s a fashion show.

There will be … Barefoot wine & bubbly (for a donation) … a silent auction featuring some amazing wines … a wide and wild variety of fun hiker/adventurer styles modeled by local outdoor aficionados. I don’t want to give away all of the surprises in store for the evening, but (more…)

OE Instructor Hillary Behr explains tufa formation to a group of Los Angeles Infrastructure Academy students.

This update comes to the Mono-logue from Hillary Behr, one of the Mono Lake Committee’s Outdoor Experiences Instructors:

The 2009 Outdoor Experiences season has been going strong all summer! It is the first season here for both me and my co-worker Logan Parsons and we are finding the program very fun and rewarding. I drove out to the Mono Basin from New Hampshire this spring and am still trying to get used to the stunning Sierra and vast open spaces of the west. As I get to know this place, it keeps opening up to reveal more and more beauty and mystery.

Two groups in particular have really blown us away as far as the maturity and attitudes of the students. Both were part of a program called Generation Power. All the students attended the Infrastructure Academy, a school sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) that prepares students for jobs in city infrastructure.

Generation Power students are chosen from their class to work for DWP performing water audits in Los Angeles Unified School District. Since they are already involved (more…)