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Mono Lake
It is like another world: limestone tufa towers rise like strange stalagmites out of the still, salty lake waters in California’s Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve.
Mark Twain described a “solemn, silent, sail-less sea” and called it “California’s Dead Sea”.
Mono Lake is, indeed, other-worldy.
The air is hot and still: July afternoon temperatures range from the high twenties (29°C; 84°F) into the mid-thirties (35°C; 95°F) – and rapidly drop into the single digits at nightfall.
The waters are dense and still: the shallow waters that cover about 168 square kilometres (65 square miles) flow in from the surrounding mountains, but don’t flow out again. Mono Lake is the terminal lake in an endorheic basin; thanks to water evaporation into the hot, dry, desert air over the millennia, the salts and minerals that wash into it from Eastern Sierra streams have become more concentrated and now are about two and a half times as salty as the ocean, and very alkaline.
Some say the ancient lake is over 1 million years old: it was formed at least 760,000 years ago, and is among the oldest lakes in North America. Sitting at the north end of the Mono–Inyo Craters volcanic chain, it is thought to be the vestige of an inland sea.
No fish break the surface of the dense waters: there are none here. They can’t survive the hypersalinity and high alkalinity. This is home to single-celled planktonic algae, Mono Lake brine shrimp, alkali flies, and a number of nematodes. And these, in turn, are all an important source of food for migratory and nesting birds. The ancient lake literally teems with bird life, and the longer you stand on the shore, the more you see.
Perhaps the lake’s most remarkable features are the tufa towers: lumpy columns of calcium carbonate – or limestone – that rise out of the still waters like something from another world.
I was there in the early evening with a friend and a tripod: we had spent the morning at the nearby Minaret Vista (see: Minaret Vista), and were hoping for a nice sunset amongst the tufa.
Join me!
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An Oasis in the Desert
As we walk into the South Tufa Area, Mono Lake and the large volcanic Paoha Island within it, come into view. Naturalists lead free tufa walks here three times daily – which probably explains the clump of people in my view.
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Mono Lake Tufa Remains
The lake was much larger once. From 1913, the city of Los Angeles diverted waters from feeder rivers, and in 1941 extended the Los Angeles Aqueduct system into the Mono Basin. By 1990, the lake had dropped 14 metres (45 feet) and had lost half its volume relative to the 1941 water level. It took concerted local effort to save the lake, and the state reserve was finally established by California in 1981. Fallen tufa from years past still litter the sandy ground.
South Tufa Area
Tufas start their life underwater: calcium-rich freshwater springs bubble up from under the lake bed.
Tall Limestone Tufa
The calcium reacts with the carbonates in the lake water, combining to make calcium carbonate, or limestone. The limestone settles as a solid around the spring, and over time, builds up into a tufa tower.
Evening on the Tufas
These tufa towers keep growing, as spring waters continue to rise up through them, and leave more deposits as they seep through the surfaces.
People at the Tufas
Mountains rise up all around us.
Sage Thrasher (Oreoscoptes Montanus) – I Think!
The lake is a mecca for birds and bird watchers.
Birds on Mono Lake
Moonrise over the Tufa
Behind us, the moon rises over the tufa in the south east, …
Sunburst on the Tufa
… and in the other direction, the lowering sun is reflected in the lake.
Tufa Towers
The lengthening shadows highlight the rough surfaces of the limestone columns.
Sandpiper in the Tufa
The lake is home to sandpipers, oystercatchers, avocets, phalaropes and other long-billed, long legged waders, who all blend in with the rocks. I had trouble distinguishing one from the other!
Tufa
The shapes reflected in the still waters are other-worldly.
Tufa Mirrored
They seem to float on the water in the evening light.
Children Collecting Water
At the edge of the lake, children collect water to study the brine shrimp and alkali flies up close.
Long-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus Scolopaceus) or Wilson’s Phalarope (Phalaropus Tricolor) ?
Sage Thrasher (Oreoscoptes Montanus)
Tufas on the Lakeshore
Evening Walk around Mono Lake
A Seagull in the Looking Glass
Mono Lake is home to the largest California gull (Larus californicus) nesting sites in North America, and an estimated 50,000 gulls stop here in summer.
Wilson’s Phalaropes (Phalaropus Tricolor)
Tufas in the Lake
The scene is primordial – or like something out of science fiction.
Nesting Osprey
Since the mid-1980s, osprey pairs have been nesting on tufa towers in Mono Lake.
Osprey Pair
Although the raptors are fish-eaters – and therefore have to hunt for food further afield – the tufa-islands provide nesting sites that ground-based predators can’t access.
Jagged Tufas
With my tripod set up near the shoreline, …
Moon over Mono
… I can watch the moon rise over the tufa towers …
Tufas in the Twilight
… as the sky changes colour over the lake …
Tufa Island after Sunset
… and everything goes dark and quiet.
Truly, like another world.
But, full of life. Not a dead sea at all.
Happy Wandering!
Photos: 18July2013
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[…] I was visiting a friend who lives part of the year in this magnificent area. We had explored the South Tufa Area of the lake, with its otherworldly tufa towers of limestone rising out of the salty waters the evening before (see: Evening over the Tufa Towers). […]