Reds Meadow Valley Restoration Project Groundbreaking Ceremony

When: September 26, 2026, 1:00 – 2:00 pm PST

Where: Agnew Meadows Campground
Reds Meadow Rd,
West of Minaret Vista Entrance Station
Mammoth Lakes, CA 93546

Complimentary shuttle service to and from the ceremony will be available near the Village Gondola at The Village Lodge in Mammoth Lakes.

Remarks will be made by leadership from JMT Wilderness Conservancy, Inyo National Forest, the California Natural Resources Agency, and Town of Mammoth Lakes Mayor Amanda Rice. Tribal Chairman Ron Goode of the North Fork Mono Tribe will offer a sage-smoke blessing and ritual, along with a traditional invocation to the Ancestors and the Creator for permission to enter these lands.

This event will close with the official groundbreaking, a toast, and closing remarks.

• For more information about the USFS Lost Meadows Model, please see Karen L. Pope, Adam K. Cummings, 2023.
  https://jmtwilderness.org/rmv-rp-monitoring-stewardship-plan/
• For the history of the John Muir Trail, est. 1915, please see Tim Davis, PhD History, NPS Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) Report, Library of Congress: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/john-muir-trail-tour.htm

About JMT Wilderness Conservancy: Since 2018, JMT Wilderness Conservancy has focused on restoring Sierra Nevada meadow ecosystems and the riparian recreational corridor along the iconic John Muir Trail, America’s oldest recreational hiking trail.  The JMT’s 217 miles follows the Sierra Nevada crest and, with its access trails, encompasses roughly 2.8 million acres through the heart of California’s snowpack and prime alpine wilderness. JMT Wild’s mission is to recover and restore montane meadows and riparian terrain that have been damaged by 200-year-old historic impacts, now compounded by intense recreational use. Our Monitoring & Stewardship Program, powered by a dedicated team of experienced field managers and undergraduate environmental majors, ensures precise data collection and quality-control oversight to guide our restoration efforts. In 2024, we adopted the U.S. Forest Service’s Lost Meadows Model that analyzes California’s 10,000 hand-surveyed Sierra meadows with AI-enabled satellite imaging and LiDAR technology in order to locate and reclaim the historic scope of these meadow ecosystems. By partnering with tribal ecologists using TEK methods and employing Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LTPBR) techniques, we are implementing sustainable land management practices to restore and, where possible, expand these critical ecosystems. No Wilderness.  No Water.

For questions, contact Nicole Reitter, JMT Wild Media Consultant, at: reittermarketing@gmail.com or 530.448.3382