Several times each year the Alabama Hills Stewardship Group works on projects to improve and preserve the experience of the Alabama Hills.

The Alabama Hills are a semi-primitive multiple use recreation area. One goal of the Alabama Hills Stewardship Group is to continue to encourage this open recreational use with minimal restrictions yet preserve this spectacular area for future visitor. These projects are one way that we help support this goal.

We work on trail and road maintenance with an eye on minimizing their footprint and keeping them within their traditional beds.

On main arteries we may slightly level the roadways, eliminating freshly cut run-off ditches and recently exposed boulders that cause drivers to swerve into the brush and widen the roads.

We temporarily mark trails to existing scenic sites to encourage the creation of a single path to them rather than a spiderweb of paths across the desert.

On occasion we develop new trails to sites but always with goal of minimizing the visual impact.

Through photography and mapping we monitor the for road and trail creep. We even use the movies filmed here to determine historical roads. A satellite or aerial view of the Alabama Hills shows they are criss crossed with roads and trails. Many of the roads were created during the early years of film making and have a historical value to the Alabama Hills. Most of these continue to be important to both the film industry and the visitors to the Alabama Hills. On occasion the Alabama Hills Stewardship Group evaluates duplicate roads, where two parallel roads go to the same site. In some cases this duplication is still needed by ongoing filming where cameras occupy one road and the scene occupies the other. But in other cases the group may decide to eliminated a duplicate road.

With the surge of off-highway vehicles we see new roads and trails appear. The Alabama Hills Stewardship Group evaluates new roads and trails and decides whether they are a benefit to the hills or if the desert should be reestablished. Our Don't Crush the Brush project targets educating these new riders, film crews, visitors and local residents about the fragility of the desert landscape and the need to protect it for the future.

One of our annual events is the Alabama Hills Spirit Day typically held the weekend before the Lone Pine Film Festival. We take this time to clean up the trash left around on movie sites showcased by the Lone Pine Film Festival so our hills will appear their best.

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