A very quiet spring in the Mono Basin has given way to quite a busy summer, and there was a marked uptick in travelers in town leading up to the Fourth of July holiday weekend. With US Forest Service visitor centers closed, Yosemite National Park operating under restricted access procedures, and so many businesses working alternative operations, there have been many more questions from travelers than available answers.

Visitors can get answers to their questions at the Mono Lake Committee’s “pop-up” information station, Thursdays through Saturdays and some Sundays and Mondays. Photo by Claire Landowski.

So, although our bookstore space remains closed, the Mono Lake Committee has begun staffing a “pop-up” information station on our front patio to help address the myriad questions posed by the influx of visitors to the Eastern Sierra.

We’re calling it a “pop-up” station because we don’t have regular, set hours—we’re making the schedule week by week and adjusting as needed. We do plan to open the station on the weekends, likely Thursday through Saturday plus perhaps the occasional Sunday and Monday.

Rose opened the station for the first (more…)

The Mono Lake Committee has made the difficult decision to not bring any of the summer seasonal staff we had hired to Lee Vining for 2020. Our whole team is disappointed to not be able to share the summer with what promised to be an incredible group of interns, but we all agree that it is the right decision for everyone involved.

The 2019 seasonal staff learning about Mono Lake’s ecology on the south shore last summer. Photo by Alison Kaplan.

Cancellation of the summer hiring does not mean that all summer programs are cancelled, but the uncertainty about when we might be able to offer tours and reopen the bookstore was a major reason for the decision.

Normally our intern training takes two full weeks at the beginning of June, and some of the summer staff arrive much earlier (more…)