The Eastern Sierra Stewardship Corps
ESSC Trip Info
For a list of our outings please see the Trip Calendar.
For info on signing up please see the information specific to each trip, accessed via the calendar.
Please sign up in advance - low enrollments may force cancellation of a trip.
Past trip info is archived here.
The Inyo National Forest, located along the eastern edge of California, is one of the most heavily visited National Forests in the Nation.
Within a five hours drive from four of the west's major metropolitan areas - Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay, Reno and Las Vegas - the grand mountain and desert vistas, pristine mountain streams teaming with wily trout, and thousands of miles of backcountry Wilderness trails, draw more visitors each year than Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks combined.
Unfortunately, just as more and more people head for the hills to recreate, the capacity of the Inyo National Forest is rapidly declining. For fiscal year 2006, the Inyo National Forest may lose up to 20 field and specialist positions due to budgetary shortfalls. Given the current trend of decreasing budgets and increasing use, ongoing Wilderness management issues, such as trail condition, off-road vehicle incursion, resource damage and exotic weed invasion may seem insurmountable.
To combat the perfect storm brewing in the Eastern Sierra with increasing visitor demand coupled with decreasing Forest Service management capacity, Friends of the Inyo, through a generous matching grant from the National Forest Foundation, has established the Eastern Sierra Wilderness Stewardship Corps as an ongoing program to develop projects and recruit volunteers for work in Wilderness Areas on the Inyo National Forest and adjacent public lands.
By engaging and empowering local and visiting Wilderness users in the active management of their public wilderness resource, we hope to address real, on the ground concerns with real, on the ground solutions. With the perennially shrinking land management budgets, groups like Friends of the Inyo are needed now more than ever to step up with creative solutions to help solve the problems facing our public lands.
Get Involved!
The success of the Wilderness Stewardship Corps depends in large part on YOU! As co-owners of our Wilderness, we need you to help restore the trails you love, reroute tracks out of down-cutting meadows, pull spring-sucking tamarisk and help inform visitors how to enjoy the Wilderness sustainably. Your reward will not only be the satisfying ache in your muscles after a day of rolling boulders and the sense of accomplishment that only comes from working with others toward a realizable goal, but also the smile on someone's face as they meander a well-designed trail, drinking in the beauty of Sierran Wilderness and listening to the raucous call of a Clark's Nutcracker. To find out how you can take active care of Eastern Sierra Wilderness, please call Todd Vogel, Stewardship Coordinator, at 760-873-6500 or 760-920-0774 (cell), or
There are many ways to get involved and help out.
Please check our Calendar Page for ideas and specific programs. We offer the following programs:
Service Trips for groups and organizations
Working with your group or program we can create a stewardship service trip that meets your educational and community service goals and fits within your logistical constraints.
Volunteer Getaways
Open enrollment stewardship trips for individuals. These are one to seven day trips, both frontcountry and wilderness based, with a core objective of a restoration or work project but which also allow for time to enjoy being out on tour public lands, perhaps hiking or bagging a peak or learning a new backcountry skill.
Internship and for-credit field study opportunities
For High School and college students we can create internships and intensive field study trips ranging in length from a few days to a full summer. The projects might include biological transects, campsite inventories, public outreach at trailheads, or trail work depending on your area of study and interest. We can work closely with your program to help ensure that credit requirements are fulfilled.
Service trips and mountain skills
Working with Sierra Mountain Center, we also provide mountain trips focused both on stewardship and mountain skills. For instance, our Cold Water Canyon Spring Trail Maintenance weekend spends a day clearing trails and a day learning ice axe and crampon skills under the leadership of professional mountain guide Todd Vogel.
Trip Sponsorship
There are many ways you or your organization can contribute to our efforts: underwrite staffing, food, transportation or accommodations on a specific trip or project; provide equipment such as backpacking or camping gear; "adopt" a trail or area; join us for an outdoor retreat trip created especially for your organization - a chance for you to show your support for protecting wildlands while giving your staff or customers a chance to get out and enjoy the outdoors; or simply become a supporting member of Friends of the Inyo!
The National Forest Foundation, chartered by Congress, engages America in community-based and national programs that promote the health and public enjoyment of the 192 million acre National Forest System and accepts and administers private gifts of funds and land for the benefit of the National Forests. To learn more visit www.natlforests.org.