The Glass Mountains, on Nüümü ancestral land in the Mono Basin, sit within an 88,000-acre watershed that once held the region's largest population of Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frog, a population so significant it was documented in 1984, only to disappear entirely by 1993. Decades of livestock grazing, invasive fish, water diversions, and forest road impacts degraded the area's seven high-priority meadows, and in 2021, the Dexter Fire tore through already-stressed forest stands, adding wildfire damage to a long list of pressures. The stakes reach well beyond this one watershed: Sierra Nevada headwaters supply roughly 60% of California's domestic water supply, yet about 70% of Sierra meadows statewide are currently degraded, limiting their natural ability to capture snowmelt and release it slowly through the dry season.

CalTrout is leading an integrated restoration approach here with the U.S. Forest Service's Inyo National Forest, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Bishop Paiute Tribe, treating water, carbon, wildlife, and energy as connected outcomes rather than separate goals. The work includes process-based hydrologic restoration and re-wetting of meadows, stream channel reconnection, aspen enhancement, and selective forest thinning, with the thinned biomass converted into renewable energy for the local grid rather than left as wildfire fuel. A dedicated monitoring framework (SM-WRAMP) tracks progress across all seven meadows, and the project includes tribal apprenticeship and workforce development programs to build local capacity alongside the restoration itself.

Backed by funding from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife awarded in May 2025, design work was completed in early 2026 on two of the seven target meadows, with on-the-ground restoration beginning on roughly 125 acres in 2026, part of a four-year project targeted for completion by March 2027. CalTrout is also developing a first-of-its-kind carbon and economic benefits assessment tool to quantify exactly how much water, carbon, and habitat value this kind of integrated restoration delivers, work that could help unlock sustained funding for similar projects across the Sierra.