The Twenty Lakes Basin Toads and Trails enhancement project proposes to restore over three miles of unauthorized use trails damaging wet, alpine meadow habitat, and address deferred maintenance on nearly ten miles of heavily-used system trails in the popular Hoover Wilderness of the Inyo National Forest. By restoring erosive, undesignated user-created trails through sensitive meadow habitat and enhancing existing system trails by addressing deferred maintenance, the project reduces the ecological impact of the designated trail system and improves user experience. User-trail restoration will directly enhance meadow and watershed function to benefit documented breeding populations of federally threatened Yosemite Toad, as well as enhance one of Mono County’s most popular and easily-accessible backcountry angling destinations sporting four species of trout (Brook, Rainbow, Brown, and Golden). The project will benefit three public water systems, as well as a major hydroelectric generation reservoir.
Project partners include Friends of the Inyo, the June Lake Trails Committee, Mono County, the Inyo National Forest, the DeChambeau Creek Foundation, and numerous individual volunteers.
Project work would begin in spring of 2023, after snowmelt. The first milestone will be to survey and map the project area to identify the exact work to be done, followed by detailed scheduling, volunteer outreach, staffing, implementation and post-implementation monitoring. It is anticipated the project will be complete by October 2023.
All project work will be designed and implemented in collaboration with Forest Service specialists (wildlife, botany, heritage, and recreation) by Friends of the Inyo Trail Ambassadors and project partners. For user-trail restoration, undesignated trails will be inventoried and site-specific camouflage and blocking measures (using natural materials) will be used to redirect traffic to system trails. Trail obscuration measures will be enhanced with specifically-designed signage explaining why said trail was restored, identifying the improvements to Yosemite Toad habitat and directing users to system trails. System trail enhancement (deferred maintenance) and restoration work will be conducted by Friends of the Inyo Trail Ambassadors staff as well as volunteers from project partners with the bulk of the work to be accomplished through a multi-day volunteer Wilderness stewardship project.
Restoration and maintenance locations will be monitored throughout the season for success and restored if needed. A long-term benefit of project implementation will be the installation of trail counters (managed by Mono County) and visitor self-registration boxes (maintained by partners) to accurately track and determine visitor use. These visitor use numbers will be used to inform future capacity and maintenance needs for this high-traffic alpine basin.
The outcomes of the project will be a more resilient and connected watershed, reduced ecosystem damage and habitat fragmentation, tangible improvements to a popular system trail, and improved access and recreational opportunities through system trail improvement.
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206 views • posted 05/24/2023