INYO NATIONAL FOREST IS SET

 TO CLOSE TO ALL USERS ON

TUESDAY, August 31, 2021 as of Midnight!

Dear Inyo Partners and Friends,
The Inyo National Forest, along with all National Forests in the Pacific Southwest Region, will be closing to most public use beginning tomorrow, August 30 until at least September 17. The decision was just made at the regional level after lengthy discussion with all Forest Supervisors over the weekend. This is not the news I wanted to share with you all ahead of Labor Day. I made it clear to regional leadership the significant impacts that a forest closure has to our Eastern Sierra communities. Unfortunately for us and many of our forest communities around the state, there are even more grave and emergent impacts from wildfires and the lack of firefighting resources. We are quickly approaching, and in some areas in the region, have crossed below the threshold of being able to effectively support initial attack operations. The fires we are seeing are exhibiting truly unprecedented behavior. I am currently in Northern California lending support to forests up here with significant fire activity. We saw two new fire starts overnight, which quickly grew in size, even outside of the area of the red flag warning. We are at the point in the region of having to prioritize which homes and communities to save because there are not enough fire resources to save them all. The decision is being made because it is the prudent thing to do for public safety. It is clear that our tactics and strategies will need to change significantly in the future in order to stay ahead of these climate change driven impacts. The risk management decisions that we are having to make are harrowing and the decision to close the forest is absolutely one of those decisions. If closing the forest reduces risk enough for us to prioritize resources to save a community or save a life, I have to say that it is worth it.

Report posted prior to the Forest Service Closure follows.

 Summer Hours:

Sunday to Saturday

7:00am to 7:00pm

Fall hours start 

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7th.

       Friday – Sunday:     7:00am to 7:00pm

  Monday – Thursday:  8:00am to 6:00pm

CAFÉ - CLOSED

And just like that in a blink of an eye, the days are getting shorter and there’s yellow showing around the Lake – Fall must be on its way! There was even frost at Bishop Pack Station up at North Lake Sunday morning! 

The Lake is starting to drop at a rate of about 4 inches a day. With the level dropping, we’ll start running out of where the boats can be beach rather soon. That being said, we are not quite sure when we will close for the year – it will be sooner rather than later. We’ll make it thru Labor Day weekend, but we’re just not sure for how much longer. 

The rumors of a stocking were true – Wright’s Rainbow out of Thatcher, Idaho showed up bright and early Tuesday morning with a GREAT load of Rainbows. With a bit of a good breeze the rest of Tuesday and substantial breezes on Wednesday and Thursday those fish spread out all over the Lake. There was catching going on everywhere over the weekend – by the outflow on the dam, over in Jack’s Bay, around the rocks forming the shoreline around the natural lakes and of course, DingleBerry Inlet.  Didn’t get any pictures as we were a bit busy answering questions. 

Sunday and Monday were glorious smoke-free days, but boy was it smokey prior to that – nothing like last year (so far) with the Creek Fire, but definitely burned the eyeballs. Remember, the smoke is dependent on the wind and it doesn’t take long for the smoke to fill the basin. This is the website I use to monitor the air quality -  https://www.purpleair.com/map?opt=1/mAQI/a10/cC0#6.56/37.753/-120.495 .  Another website that may interest you is www.BishopWeather.com – this site has a camera on the White side of the valley and point towards Mt Tom, Mt Humphries etc – gives you a picture of what might be going on in the valley and the mountain along with the current weather in the valley. Additionally, the following website shows speed and wind direction along with smoke and fire info - https://zoom.earth/#view=37.051,-121.434,7z/date=2021-08-22,18:20,-7/layers=wind,fires .

FIRE RESTRICTIONS: 

     I received an email from our local Forest Service recreation liaison stating: 

Just to let everyone know we are entering phase 2 fire restrictions on Tues 8/24 - This means NO fires are permitted in any fire rings or otherwise. Thank you for your understanding. I also just want to touch base that the 5 northern forests have went into full forest closures again. With fire fighting resources spread as thin as they are, if fires start popping up in the southern end, it is a strong possibility that it will happen down here. Fingers crossed that does not happen, but just throwing it out there. This includes private land campgrounds in the Inyo National Forest as this is an Inyo county order also…