The Owens River is a river stretching about 150 miles from around Mammoth to Owens Dry Lake Bed. This river drains most of the southern portion of the Eastern Sierras, between Lone Pine and Mammoth. It also drains the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains, but not much water comes out of these mountains. The river starts in Mono County around mammoth as Hot Creekin the volcanic Long Valley Caldera. It then flows into Crowley Lake before going through the steep Owens River Gorge (popular for rock climbing and enters Inyo county and the Owens Valley. Here it meanders slowly through Bishop and east of Big Pine, and once continued in this form through the whole valley before dumping into what was once a large saline lake. Los Angeles bought up (some might say stole)the water rights for this valley back when LA was a small town. William Mulholland engineered a major aqueduct to bring most of the water of the Owens River and its tributaries to Los Angeles. Lake Crowley was created as storage and to be used as hydroelectric power. For a long time the Owens River Gorge was totally dry but eventually LA was mandated to release some water. The river flows pretty solid from Pleasant Valley Reservoir in the gorge to Tinemaja Reservoir near Big Pine and a bit farther before the water is removed from the river. (water is also taken from most of its tributaries below this point, including Independence Creek and Lone Pine Creek.) Since almost no water flows into the lake now, it is mainly a dry salt flat. Los Angeles is supposed to restore a portion of this lake, but whether or not they really do it is another story.