The Owens River Gorge is a steep 10 mi (16 km) canyon on the upper

Owens River The Owens River is a river in eastern California in the United States, approximately long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 17, 2011, It drains into and through the ...

in eastern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The canyon is located at the eastern edge of the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

mountains in southern

Mono County Mono County ( ) is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,195, making it the fourth-least populous county in California. The county seat is Bridgeport. The coun ...

, along the stretch of the river where it exits the Long Valley near its source and enters the north end of

Owens Valley Owens Valley (Numic Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Pl ...

. The gorge is a popular destination for

rock climbing Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically and ...

Geology

The Owens River Gorge was formed when the Owens River cut through the

Bishop Tuff The Bishop Tuff is a welded tuff that formed 764,800 ± 600 years ago as a rhyolitic pyroclastic flow during the approximately six day eruption that created the Long Valley Caldera. Large outcrops of the tuff are located in Inyo and Mono Countie ...

: a layer of welded ash formed from the eruption of the

Long Valley Caldera Long Valley Caldera is a depression in eastern California that is adjacent to Mammoth Mountain. The valley is one of the Earth's largest calderas, measuring about long (east-west), wide (north-south), and up to deep. Long Valley was formed 7 ...

. This erosion exposed the tuff layers, including rare columnar

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...

formations.

Water restoration

The

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021-2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of water per day to more ...

constructed the

Long Valley Dam Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music men ...

at the head of the Owens River Gorge as part of a

hydropower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by energy transformation, converting the Pot ...

project in 1941, and completely dewatered the 16-km Lower Gorge reach from 1953 to 1991. Beginning in 1991, a limited range of flows has been released to rewater the reach, recreate

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks ar ...

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

, and reestablish a

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morph ...

sport fishery while maintaining hydropower diversions. DWP

References

External links

Owens River Gorge: Climbing Guide
Matt Smeltzer, Neil Lassettre * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20140310092544/http://wsoweb.ladwp.com/Aqueduct/historyoflaa/monobasin.htm The Mono Basin ProjectDWP G01 Canyons and gorges of California Landforms of Mono County, California Landforms of the Sierra Nevada (United States) {{LosAngeles-stub