Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

Budget cuts end 26-year Mono Lake tradition

Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

This week the Inyo National Forest notified us that they are implementing a new round of budget cuts, adding to those announced earlier in the spring.

The budget reductions hit Mono Lake visitors hard. Two Forest Service  staff in the Mono Basin have been laid off, and the federal visitor center may close weeks earlier than usual.

Even more disappointing, the Forest Service has ended their daily 1:00pm ranger-led walking tour of South Tufa for the visiting public. While the Forest Service has led many programs at many sites over the years (almost all of which are now gone), the South Tufa tour is the mainstay, the classic, the tour everyone who wants to learn about Mono Lake goes on.

The cancellation ends a 26-year tradition. The Forest Service has guided the public through South Tufa since 1985, right after the Congressionally-designated Mono Basin Scenic Area was created in the 1980s.

The Mono Lake Committee and Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve staff will continue to offer hour-long walks to the public, and tour group sizes have already swelled without the Forest Service offering in the mix.

But the Tufa State Natural Reserve, and layoff of their staff, is slated for the end of the year (read more and take action here). That means the abrupt Forest Service cutbacks heavily underscore the unraveling of the management and interpretive partnerships that have made Mono Lake an appealing spot to visit for decades.

The Trail at South Tufa
The trail along the lakeshore at South Tufa. Due to budget cuts, the Forest Service has ended its 26-year tradition of leading the free daily 1:00pm tours at South Tufa for the public. An increasingly crowded 10:00am tour led by the State and the 6:00pm tour led by the Mono Lake Committee will continue, though State programs are slated for shutdown at the end of the year. Photo by Elin Ljung.

5 Comments

  2. Thank you Sally! What a nice compliment. The credit should go to Mono Lake though, as always.

  3. I am saddend to hear about the recent cancellation of this long standing tradition. This image reminds me of almost the same viewpoint where I shot the lake one afternoon after a receding storm. That was more than 20 years ago and it became an important image to the Committee to help educate the public about Mono. Mono has changed considerably since then (certainly less tufa exposed) and we can only hope that while Nature and dedicated people take care of Mono, that State and Federal entities will see how important it is for education of the public to continue.