Mono Lake

The tufa towers form underwater, where freshwater springs bubbling up from the lakebed meet the carbonate-rich lake water. The calcium in the spring water and the carbonate in the lake combine into limestone, which builds slowly around each spring, tower by tower, over decades and centuries.

For most of the lake's life these towers stayed hidden beneath the surface. The reason so many now stand exposed on dry land is not natural. Starting in 1941, Los Angeles began diverting the streams that fed the lake, and over the following decades the water level dropped by dozens of feet, stranding the tufa in the open air. What looks timeless is partly a record of that draining.

As Mono Lake shrank, its salinity rose toward levels that would collapse the food web, and a land bridge opened to Negit Island, exposing the nesting gulls to predators. In 1978 a group of young scientists and activists founded the Mono Lake Committee to fight for the lake.

The long legal battle reached the California Supreme Court and, in 1994, the State Water Resources Control Board ordered Los Angeles to let the lake rise back toward a healthier level. It became one of the landmark victories in American water law, a case that established that a public trust protects a lake like this even against a thirsty city. The lake is still recovering toward its target level today.

The Mono Basin is the homeland of the Kutzadika'a, a Northern Paiute people whose name means eaters of the kutsavi, the pupae of the alkali fly. For countless generations they harvested the abundant fly pupae from the lakeshore, a rich and storable food, and traded it over the mountains with the Miwok and other Sierra peoples.

The alkali flies that swarm the shore each summer, and the brine shrimp in the water, are the base of the whole living lake, the same abundance that fed people here for thousands of years and feeds the migrating birds today. The Kutzadika'a remain part of the Mono Basin.

In spring and summer, tens of thousands of California gulls nest on the lake's islands, the second largest breeding colony of the species anywhere. In late summer, huge flocks of eared grebes and both Wilson's and red-necked phalaropes descend to fatten on brine shrimp before continuing their migrations, some of the phalaropes bound for South America.

The birds come because the food is nearly limitless and predators cannot reach the water. Standing on the shore in August, you can watch grebes carpet the lake in the thousands. Bring binoculars, and go early, when the birds are most active and the light is soft.

Summer and early fall are the classic seasons, with warm days, easy road access, and peak bird numbers, though it can be hot and the flies are thick. Spring brings wildflowers to the basin and snow still on the Sierra behind the lake. Winter is cold and stark and quietly beautiful, but Tioga Pass over the mountains is closed.

Time your visit for sunrise or sunset at South Tufa if you can, when the towers glow and the lake goes still as glass. The nearby town of Lee Vining and the Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Center are good first stops for maps and current conditions.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.