Inyo Register
Guided visits to Scotty’s Castle available through mid-April
DEATH VALLEY — A devastating flood in October 2015 closed Death Valley National Park’s Scotty’s Castle, depriving visitors of an intimate look at life on a desert ranch in the early decades of the 20th century. Since then, the National Park Service...
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Lone Pine Film Fest good for business
Locals working in retail and hospitality along Lone Pine’s Main Street know: The Lone Pine Film Festival brings a surge of business to the area, mostly from out-of-towners who come back year after year. From Thursday, when the festival begins,...
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Future Green Leaders Summit draws Inyo, Mono middle schoolers
Middle school students from Inyo and Mono counties collaged posters, storyboarded film ideas, and designed backpacks at Cerro Coso Community College Bishop campus Thursday for the fourth annual Future Green Leaders Summit. The event aims to expose...
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Big Pine welcomes National Night Out
National Night Out, hosted by the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office, drew hundreds of community members to Big Pine’s Mendenhall Park Tuesday evening. The community connection event, designed to make neighborhoods safer through relationship building,...
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Large crowds on board with Choo Choo Swap Meet Saturday
The biannual Choo Choo Swap Meet, which helps support Laws Railroad Museum and Historical Site, and enjoys considerable volunteering support from the Bishop Sunrise Rotary, attracted many visitors to the TriCounty Fairgrounds Saturday. Shoppers could...
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City council candidates appeal to voters at chamber forum
The youthfulness and fresh perspective of challengers Tyler Beadle and Aaron Schat are up against the experience and polish of incumbents Stephen Muchovej and Karen Schwartz in the race for two seats on the Bishop City Council. More than 50 attendees...
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5th annual Trailfest draws 3,000 runners to Eastern Sierra
Countless cowbells rang along Mammoth Lakes streets and mountain trails last weekend as 3,000 runners participated in Trailfest events Sept. 24-27. Dust gathered up to the shins of many participants whose black Hoka running shoes turned smoke-colored...
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Native culture shines on California Indian Day weekend
Plenty of Paiute Shoshone tribal pride and community spirit were evident in Bishop from Thursday evening through the weekend around California Indian Day, which was observed Friday. Although originally celebrated Oct. 1 when Indian Day was declared in...
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Bishop 9-1-1 Dispatch Center receives $500K in state funding
Editor’s Note: On Wednesday, Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, R-Jackson, announced her office had helped secure state funding for Bishop public safety infrastructure benefiting the city’s 9-1-1 police, fire and emergency medical services dispatch center. The...
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Eastern Sierra Community Foundation could soon be a reality
When one looks at a map of community foundations throughout the state on the League of California Community Foundations’ website, lccf. org, a stark visual is impossible to ignore: There are no community foundations in Inyo or Mono counties. But that...
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Volunteers at center stage at Millpond Music Festival
Millpond Music Festival brought bands from across the country, the world and the local scene to the stage Sept. 18-20, at the base of the Sierra Nevada. A mix of loyal festivalgoers and newcomers gathered on the green between the two Millpond...
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Year-round air service now a reality
The “Small Town with a Big Backyard” now boasts year-round air service. But the victory is not Bishop’s alone, and stakeholders throughout Inyo and Mono counties who had a hand in making this goal a reality are celebrating. “We are beyond thrilled,”...
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BLM to auction nearly 31,700 acres of geothermal leases in Inyo, Mono
The Bureau of Land Management announced Friday that it is getting ready to auction off geothermal leases on 19 parcels of land it manages across six California counties — including Inyo and Mono, where almost twothirds of the parcels, 12 altogether,...
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Walking in their shoes
The Bishop Volunteer Fire Department Association’s annual 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb was held with great solemnity and community support Friday to raise funds for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Attendees joined first responders in scaling...
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Inyo receives nearly $500K for Owens River Water Trail Project
The Sierra Nevada Conservancy board awarded close to $1.5 million in Proposition 68 grants last week to help fund sustainable recreation and tourism in the Sierra-Cascade region — and an Inyo County project received nearly onethird of the funds. The...
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Tri-County Fair delivers plenty of novel fare
For anyone who ever wondered what Pink Floyd’s classic “Another Brick in the Wall” might sound like in a Latin cumbia beat, Outlaw Mariachi made that a reality at the Coso Energy Stage at this year’s Tri-County Fair. Likewise, for those wishing to...
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New Chamber Music Society season on tap
The Ridgecrest Chamber Music Society announced last week that its 2026-27 season begins Sunday, Sept. 20 at 4 p.m. at the Ridgecrest Methodist Church, 639 Norma St. The season begins with the Davin-Levin Duo, who is a harp/ guitar duo new to the...
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A Mammoth of a mural
Students, families, educators and community members gathered at Mammoth High School on Aug. 25 to celebrate the completion of a new student-created mural and recognize the young artists who helped bring it to life. The celebration marked the...
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McCoy arts center construction on schedule
Construction of the new Dave and Roma McCoy Arts and Cultural Center in Mammoth Lakes is progressing on schedule, coinciding with the town’s hiring of local resident David Baron as the new arts and culture manager. The project took a major step...
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Celebrating a century
One hundred years from now, a time capsule buried Saturday on the south side of the Mono Basin History Museum will be dug up to reveal what life was like in Lee Vining in 2026 and what was foremost in its residents’ minds. Among the 80 items contained...
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Gutting Travel Management Rule, Roadless Rule
The U.S. Forest Service announced plans last week to publish a notice of intent to amend the existing Travel Management Rule, to “streamline and modernize” it and to align Forest Service policy with Trump administration priorities. The rule, which...
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Hospital, county leaders recognized
California State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, R-Jackson, recently recognized Southern Inyo Healthcare District CEO Dr. Kevin Flanigan and Inyo County Fifth District Supervisor Will Wadelton for meeting rural residents’ healthcare and other needs through...
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Man dies in Death Valley
DEATH VALLEY — A 68-year-old French man died last week after he and a traveling companion became stranded on a remote road in Death Valley National Park. Pierre Michel Formosa and his friend, also from France, were traveling on West Side Road when...
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Can you say, ‘Stars, Stripes and Aloha?’
“The fayre cometh apace, and ‘tis scarce a fortnight hence,” we might say, in character, to talk about a Renaissance faire. But it’s the upcoming Tri-County Fair we’re talking about these days and, indeed, it is less than two weeks away. In fact, the...
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Millpond is psychedelic folk rock, Deep Thicket Dwellers and more
Inyo Council for the Arts would like to introduce the fifth and final round of performers for the 34th annual Millpond Music Festival, which is taking place Sept. 18-20 at the Millpond Recreation Area just north of Bishop. Featuring an eclectic range...
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Hiker dies after Palisades fall
A missing hiker was found deceased in the Palisades earlier this month, the second person to die while hiking the region this year. Inyo County Search & Rescue received a report of a missing person in the Palisades on Aug. 2. The team said his plan...
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Let Millpond’s musical vortex spin you around
Inyo Council for the Arts wants the public to meet three more acts in the lineup of this year’s Millpond Music Festival, which will take place Sept. 18-20 at the Millpond Recreation Area north of Bishop. Highlighted in this fourth of five installments...
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Serving up EcoFlights, town hall and tacos
Local conservation nonprofit Friends of the Inyo is so worried about the Trump Administration’s possible rescission “any day now” of the quarter-century-old Roadless Rule, that it recently took to the air to show policymakers and other stakeholders...
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A mix of music at Millpond
Inyo Council for the Arts has announced the third round of performers for the 2025 Millpond Music Festival who offer up international flavors, big band sounds and folk rock. The three-day event taking place Sept. 18-20 includes two stages of...
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Millpond is bagpipes, Wizzards and more
In this second in a series of five write-ups on the artists that will grace the main stage at the 34th annual Millpond Music Festival Sept. 18-20, Inyo Council for the Arts introduces masters of R&B/Folk/Jazz, bagpipes and “Wizzardry.” For the three...
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Lee Vining turns 100
The saying that big things come in small packages is applicable in a number of ways to the town of Lee Vining. The tiny, unincorporated census-designated place in Mono County boasted a population of just 217 in the 2020 U.S. Census, yet it is the...
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Raising the next generation of anglers
Hundreds of youngsters in the Eastern Sierra recently received much help from experienced anglers who have taught them how to bait hooks, cast lines, handle and clean fish, and many other aspects of the popular sport of fishing. The Snowcreek Ponds...
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Records broken at Badwater 135
New records were set in both the men’s and women’s categories at the 39th annual Badwater 135 Ultramarathon, a grueling race from Death Valley to the Mt. Whitney Portal that took place Monday through Wednesday this week, in the peak of summer. Max...
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‘A Corral of Movie Genres’
Where the west is — and for that matter, what the west is — depends on the vantage point and life experience of the one defining it. And the Museum of Western Film History looks to be broadening the cultural scope of “The West” through the fun and...
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Firefighting becomes complex
The White Mountains east of Bishop were invisible behind a thick curtain of smoke at about 7 p.m. Friday, and yet fire.ca.gov indicated that the nearby Rock Fire had not increased in size that day. The situation was complex — as in the Cinder Complex,...
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Music returns to Millpond
September is more than a month away, but the Inyo Council for the Arts is already preparing for its biggest event of the year. The 34th annual Millpond Music festival will be held Sept. 18-20 at the Millpond Recreation Area, and the council has...
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Rock Fire grows to 8,000 acres by Wednesday
The Rock Fire, which started near Aberdeen on Monday afternoon, had grown to 8,000 acres and was only 5% contained by Wednesday morning, prompting evacuations, campground closures, and partial closures along southbound U.S. 395 and other local roads,...
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‘Transforming Loss into Legacy’
Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, R-Jackson, announced last week that Wild Iris Family Counseling & Crisis Center was one of the many organizations in her district that best align with the 2026 Nonprofit of the Year theme of “Transforming Loss into...
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‘They can navigate the geography, but not the 395’
The Mammoth Lakes US 395 Wildlife Crossings Project has moved closer to becoming a reality, according to the Wildlife Crossing Fund, which supports innovative infrastructure systems that reconnect ecosystems disrupted by roadways. President and CEO...
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Mendenhall makeover
Some 200 people, close to half of them children, flocked like happy birds at Big Pine’s Mendenhall Park Monday evening to celebrate the ribbon cutting of the park’s new playground, which opened to the public on July 1. There was music, hot dogs, cake,...
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Indigenous technology restored
Sometimes life is like geometry, making things come full circle and causing the lines of people’s lives to intersect for a greater purpose. This is what appears to have happened in the case of an ancient Paiute artifact in the shape of a duck that was...
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‘A fine example of community collaboration’
Some come to the Bishop Community Garden to grow flowers or vegetables or fruits; others to find a moment of peace; still others to give back as volunteers, said Bobbie Stryffeler to the 50 or so gathered at the revamped outdoor public amenity behind...
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America celebrated Mammoth style
Mammoth Lakes may be a small mountain town, but it sure celebrated American Independence Day in a “mammoth” way Saturday. Dizzying visual expressions of red, white and blue where everywhere: on buildings, people, pets, and parade floats — 57 floats in...
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Birthday bash in Bishop
Bishop joined other Eastern Sierra communities in hosting day-long Fourth of July festivities Saturday to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary. Bishop City Park was the stage for plenty of fun activities that included free refreshments, live...
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A new lease on life?
Inyo County supervisors on Tuesday said that while they found a proposal for the “Old Old Kmart” property in Bishop interesting, they wanted to learn more about the project through staff analysis before actually committing any county resources to...
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Celebrating America big!
Have you ever wanted to get back at our local leaders? Well, the Fourth of July festivities at Bishop City Park will provide a fun way to do so: by dunking them — for a good cause! Good sports that include members of the Bishop City Council and Inyo...
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‘I’ve got $6 a pound — Who’ll bid $7?’
Twenty-nine steers, 67 hogs, 48 lambs, 29 goats, 30 turkeys, and dozens of chickens and rabbits, their proud young owners, fast-tongued auctioneers, ringmen helping to confirm bids, and members of the bidding audience kept things lively at the...
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Pack Fire investigation sparks action
It has taken the Pack Fire, a letter of concern regarding Mono County Dispatch’s role in initial response communications, and a monthslong Civil Grand Jury investigation to spur the prioritization of a major overhaul to the county’s dispatch system. A...
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Bishop tells camera vendor to ‘Flock’ off
In a rare split 3-2 decision, the Bishop City Council at its meeting Monday voted to immediately kill a contract with Flock Safety after hearing from the public and discussing the pros and cons of the automated license plate reading system for about...
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Measures R, S, T fund ICOE facilities improvements
One hundred thirtyseven distinct facilities projects have been completed at local schools since voters approved school improvement bond measures R, S, and T in 2024, the Inyo County Office of Education said in a media release issued earlier this...
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Couple recognizes locals’ generosity
Editor’s Note: One of the joys of working for The Inyo Register is being able to showcase the good that exists in the communities that make up the Eastern Sierra. The following heartfelt thank you letter is especially joyous. In reading it you will...
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Honoring the legacy of Janet Barth
Mono County environmentalist Janet Barth did not need TikTok, Instagram or YouTube to be an influencer. Her vision and hard work to protect local public lands are what continue to inspire her friends and fellow conservationists. Before she died...
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Zone change could mean more commercial activity
An empty industrial building on Dixon Lane just outside of Bishop could soon be repurposed for commercial uses with the Inyo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approving a zone reclassification for the property during its recent meeting. Inyo...
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Bustin’ broncs in Bishop
The California High School Rodeo Association’s State Finals have been taking place at the Tri-County Fairgrounds in Bishop since June 6 and conclude today, Championship Saturday. The Bishop Chamber of Commerce hosts this event, including the Mandatory...
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Bear euthanized after Mono County encounter
A Mammoth Lakes couple and their two dogs are recovering from injuries following an encounter with a yearling bear outside their home this week. The Mammoth Lakes Police Department responded to the incident in the Old Mammoth area at about 6 a.m....
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Senior Luncheon a Bishop tradition
Fifteen moms, 137 graduating seniors from Bishop Union High School’s Class of ’26, tacos, chips, aguas frescas, fiesta banners, and a whole lot of parental and community love spiced up this year’s Mexican-themed Senior Luncheon on Thursday, the day...
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‘Election day is not election results day’
While this year’s primary election may have ended when the polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Inyo County Clerk Recorder and Registrar of Voters Danielle Sexton would like the public to know one important fact: “Election day is not election results...
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Olympian to lead Mammoth 4th of July parade
Olympic medalist and longtime Mammoth Lakes resident Deena Kastor will serve as the Grand Marshal for the 2026 Mammoth Lakes 4th of July Parade, the Mammoth Lakes Chamber of Commerce announced in March. “The 4th of July Parade is one of the biggest...
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“Our rural communities matter”
Editor’s note: Through redistricting, both Mono and Inyo counties are now part of California’s Fifth Congressional District. The top Democratic candidate for that seat in the June primary election is Michael Masuda, who has received his party’s...
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Patriotism, campaigning, sales
A few themes stood out at this year’s Mule Days Parade on Saturday: patriotism around the fact that this year marks the nation’s 250th birthday; energetic campaigning from candidates in the upcoming June 2 election; and retailers and vendors’ ingenuity...
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Hi-yo, silver-haired riders!
One can learn a lot of fun and practical facts about mules — and people — at Bishop Mule Days, which ran from last Tuesday through Sunday. Just ask Lori Barnett, who taught a workshop at the Tri-County Fairgrounds in Bishop Wednesday titled Mules and...
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Troubled waters in Indian Wells?
Inyo County officials this week said they will continue to say “no” to water exports. In a letter to be sent to the Indian Wells Groundwater Authority this week, the county said it will reiterate its support for the agency’s efforts to address the...
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The little fire department that could
They say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The Round Fire of February 2015 may have destroyed more than three dozen homes and outbuildings in the southern Mono County community of Swall Meadows, but it fortunately did not claim any...
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Inyo County blowin’ in the wind
A huge wind event turned into a dust storm over Bishop and other Eastern Sierra communities Sunday afternoon, downing trees and powerlines, and keeping first responders and county staff busy with numerous calls for service. The National Weather...
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Model coach, strike a pose!
Bishop Union High School athletic director Stacy Van Nest’s (standing) announcement that the California Interscholastic Federation selected varsity football head coach Arnie Palu (in gray shirt at rear of room) as the 2025-2026 Model Coach of the Year...
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No more truckin’ in Bishop?
Gearjammers in downtown Bishop could be driving around the city rather than through it in the future. After hearing a presentation from Mayor Stephen Muchovej regarding how the number of big rigs rolling down Main Street already has exceeded...
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Changes coming to Bishop downtown parking landscape
About a dozen Bishop residents got to learn about the city’s upcoming plans regarding parking in the downtown area during a public workshop held at the City Council Chambers on April 29. Two representatives from the Wood Rodgers engineering, planning...
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National Day of Prayer
One of the busiest intersections in Bishop, where Main and West Line streets cross, was the stage for a National Day of Prayer gathering Thursday evening. Organized by the Eastern Sierra Pastors Association, the interdenominational event brought...
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‘Walking the talk’ of stocking the lake
The praise for Crowley Fish Foundation Tuesday morning from dozens gathered on the Hilton Bay shore of Crowley Lake was as plentiful as the spring rain that had been falling steadily since the night before. Mammoth Lakes Chamber of Commerce board...
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Spring fever continues
The spring fever that began in April is lingering into May with no sign of abatement, and those “stricken” with it — which seems to be just about everyone in the Eastern Sierra — are getting out and enjoying sunshine, warmth and community to the...
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Cameras on chopping block?
Bishop Police Chief Nate Derr will be reviewing automated license plate reader technology vendor alternatives after residents voiced concerns about Flock Safety’s company’s questionable business practices this week. Derr first proposed installing 10...
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Model mules at the museum
A new link to the “King of the Cowboys,” Roy Rogers — besides the one that naturally exists at Lone Pine’s Museum of Western Film History — has surfaced in Inyo County, this time in Bishop. Laws Railroad Museum & Historical Site recently received a...
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‘A sacred and horrific site’
The 57th annual Manzanar Pilgrimage took place Saturday at Manzanar National Historic Site, one of 10 relocation centers for Japanese Americans during World War II, which many have since called concentration camps. Some of the activities showcased in...
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Judicial candidates appeal to voters
The Independence Civic Club hosted an Inyo County Superior Court Judge candidate forum Wednesday evening at the American Legion Hall in Independence, with participation from all four candidates who are vying for two six-year-term seats in the June 2...
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Living the Carnegie Hall dream
Editor’s Note: Earlier this month, 32 of the 40-member Eastern Sierra Community Chorus traveled to New York for an April 13 performance at Carnegie Hall featuring the music of Grammywinning contemporary choral composer Eric Whitacre. Whitacre conducted...
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