BISHOP-Imagine local Boy Scouts trimming back brush from area trails and local Girl Scouts uncovering the Convict Lake trail after winter slides plowed over small sections of the trial. These are a few of the activities the Eastern Sierra Stewardship Corps organizes to help ensure a positive recreational experience for the over 4 million visitors to public lands.

Join us on one of our restoration projects and you will become a part of a diverse group of people from around the country who have volunteered their hands for public lands in the Eastern Sierra.

This habitat restoration project along the lower reaches of Cottonwood Creek in the White Mountains is a great way to kick off your membership. We are working on a 88 acre cattle exclusion fence that will be returning the riparian area to health and viability.

After four years and hundreds of volunteer days of concentrated effort Surprise Canyon's tamarisk situation entered its final phase - monitoring - the last weekend of March. Seven volunteers and two FOI-staff worked for parts of two days and patrolled the entire stream from Chris Wicht Camp on down to the terminus of the surface flow. We treated numerous sprouts and a few older plants; while there are certainly live tamarisk plants in the canyon, only small plants remain.

This past weekend Friends of the Inyo was blessed to be the recipient of the first ever Andrea Mead Lawrence Award for Passionate Engagement in Community and the Land. As many of you undoubtedly know, Andrea is the matriarch of Eastern Sierra conservation - a long-time Mono County Supervisor, gold medal winning Olympic skier and constant local voice for preserving what makes the Eastern Sierra wild and free.

For the past few years, Furnace Creek, a unique perennial stream on the backside of the White Mountains near Dyer has garnered a lot of attention. Prior to 2004, a little-used off-road vehicle route caused disproportionate damage as it cut through a lush riparian desert stream, and, at higher elevations, facilitated proliferation deep into the White Mountains. Friends of the Inyo has been involved in preserving the Furnace Creek habitat and, most recently, worked with many partners to generate a formal protest to the Bureau of Land Management's Environmental Assessment, which proposed rebuilding the washed-out road. The public comment period ended this past summer, and on January 29 the Bureau of Land Management announced it is withdrawing its Environmental Assessment!