Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Northern California → Eastern Sierras → Lee Vining Area → Mono Lake

Location: Lee Vining Area, Eastern Sierras, California

Time Required: 1 hour (you can spend more time if you want, but you can easily see the main grove in an hour)

Red Tape/Notes: None.

What’s Nearby? June Lake Loop, Parker Lake, Lundy Canyon, Tuolomne Meadows

Mono Lake – and particularly the tufa towers – are actually pretty interesting. You can read more about them here (on the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve website), but basically Mono Lake is a really old lake (one of the oldest lakes in North America), and it has no outlet. Over the years, the salts and minerals from streams washing into the lake have accumulated as fresh water evaporates, leading to ever-increasing concentrations of salt and minerals. By now, the lake is around 2.5 times as salty as the ocean and very alkaline. Why does this matter? Well, there are also freshwater springs feeding the lake, and when the fresh water from these springs interacts with the alkaline water, calcium carbonate forms and precipitates out of the water and accumulates, forming a solid limestone blob which eventually grows into a tufa tower. The towers grow underwater – they’re visible at Mono Lake because the water levels have dropped dramatically due to water diversion starting in the 1940’s. It’s a short walk to the shores of the lake where the main tufa grove is, and makes for a nice, short diversion while traveling through the area.

It makes for interesting photography at sunrise and sunset, but beware the hoards of photographers that may be present. We made the mistake of going on an apparently popular day for photography (or maybe it’s always this way??) and I’m pretty sure some people nearly came to fisticuffs over their tripod locations and having their view blocked. I found a nice, largely unstable location standing in the water and hoped it was unsuitable enough not to attract anyone’s attention. We now refer to something as a “tufa moment” when we realize the place we’re in is completely overrun (or about to be overrun) with tourists (especially photographers). For example “We’d better get out of here quick, it looks like we’re about to have a tufa moment.” Sunrise at Angkor Wat was probably the pinnacle of tufa moments. But that’s another story and another post.

Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Northern California → Eastern Sierras → Lee Vining Area → Mono Lake