TRAILS FOR CONWAY?
This story was originally published in the May 10, 2025 Issue.
Sometimes, the locals simply know best.
At a public meeting last Wednesday, Mono County Assistant Public Works Director Karyn Spears and Outdoor Recreation Manager Marcella Rose presented early-stage plans for a modest trail system at Conway Ranch, a historically rich agricultural site northwest of Mono Lake.
Rose overlaid a potential trail network over a GIS map, but struggled to fully flesh out the details, like how to make the trails a loop or where to make a parking area.
Lee Vining resident Lynn Boulton – seemingly the only attendee at the meeting of her own volition – raised her hand after Rose finished the presentation.
“I’ve walked it many times,” Boulton said, pointing out informal trails she follows and where she parks to access them. There are existing roads and foot trails on the land, but they’re not marked, maintained or easily connected.
She explained where you need to crawl under fences to get back to your car, what got eroded during the big winter, where she’d seen the most sage-grouse scat and where herons rest and take off from the creek.
It wasn’t long before Boulton was simply standing beside the projected map and pointing to specific areas on the trail. As Boulton pointed, Rose eagerly marked her routes on the GIS map, dotting new lines in grey and rapidly typing in notes.
Rose’s idea for the trail system was to build a connecting path from the northern portion of the parcel, lined by Conway Ranch Road, to the southern section, bordered by Highway 167. She proposed another set of trails which would branch off Mattly Ranch, a detached section of the property west of 395.
Mono County Supervisor Paul McFarland joined the discussion, cautioning that one of Rose’s suggested trail segments was extremely steep and would be prone to flooding.
He also warned that there may be unintended consequences of expanding the parking area, and said there were already problems with illegal camping on the site.
On a different, yet related note, McFarland said Highway 395 could really use some more bathrooms, since the northern Mono County section does not have an obvious rest stop.
I’ll leave the consequences of that problem up for reader’s inference, but trust me when I say this conversation took a long detour into the special, umm, “souvenirs” travelers leave behind on the road’s turnouts.
I digress.
The stated goal of the trail network is to offer casual walkers a place to explore the area without much physical strain.
“One thing I’ve been hearing throughout the region,” Rose said, “Is that if you’re a family with young kids or you don’t like hiking that much, there’s not much opportunity to get out and take an easy one-mile walk.”
Rose’s plan for the trail network included interpretive signs to guide visitors through the area’s anthropological and ecological qualities. And there’s no shortage of that; Conway Ranch boasts a long, storied history and is full of wildlife.
The land serves as a critical migratory corridor for the Mono Lake mule deer herd, and its freshwater springs and wet meadows provide essential breeding grounds for waterfowl and sage-grouse.
Originally a key stop along Native American trade routes, Conway Ranch was transformed in the 1870s by settlers who diverted water to create productive pastures for livestock and vegetables. The Conway family acquired the property in 1903 and developed it as an agricultural hub.
Mono County purchased the land after a controversial development proposal in the 1990s threatened to turn the ranch into a golf course and residential area, but continued to allow sheep grazing on the property until it found the domestic herds could spread disease to native bighorn sheep in 2017.
The County also explored the option of using the area as an aquaculture area to meet local trout demands, and worked with the Eastern Sierra Land Trust to monitor the land for conservation whilst developing a plan for fish farming.
In 2021, the County signed a five-year lease agreement to allow a cattle grazing company use of the Conway Ranch, That deal also allowed for continued aquaculture use, farming, historic preservation and, notably, recreation development.
The County recently completed the first phase of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-funded upgrade in accordance with that agreement, which included removing two miles of derelict barbed wire, clearing abandoned aquaculture facilities, and cleaning irrigation ditches.
Phase two, scheduled for spring 2025, will install new spring-fed irrigation systems, improve livestock watering access, and make infrastructure upgrades at Mattly Ranch.
With these improvements most imminent to the project, Rose did not lay out a clear timeline for the trail network’s development. She and her team plan to engage with the Bureau of Land Management’s Bishop office and the Kootzaduka’a Tribe to refine the trails map.
In the near term, the property will remain open to public access outside of fenced grazing areas.
