Mono Lake covers 65 square miles in California’s eastern Sierra Nevada. It’s more than a million years old, has no outlet, and holds no fish. It does hold trillions of brine shrimp, calcium-carbonate towers rising straight out of the water, and enough migratory birds each year to rank among the most important stopovers in the West.
The California State Parks Foundation opens its 2026 Photo Contest today, August 24. Entries are free. Open to everyone. Submissions close September 21, 2026.
You can submit up to three photos in each of five categories. Every photo has to be taken in a California state park. That’s the rule that actually matters – the rest is just categories.
California State Parks purchases the NoraBella parcel for $2.415 million, adding ridged forest and creeks to California’s oldest state park.The acquisition — the park’s first acreage addition since Little Basin in 2011 — is a strategic move in the broader Reimagining Big Basin effort born out of the 2020 CZU wildfire. Planners see NoraBella as a natural approach to rebuilding a visitor experience: space for a welcome area at Saddle Mountain, room for shuttle access that keeps parking and buildings away from the most sensitive old-growth trees, and sites for operations that let the core groves heal while still welcoming visitors. California State Parks is advancing a facilities plan, general plan amendment, and environmental review to guide rebuilding. Continue reading
AB 1804 cements the California State Library Parks Pass so Californians can borrow a day-use pass like a book and get outside.
Volunteers and towers still catch small ignitions early — a human, practical layer that many agencies have let lapse.