Mono Lake

Mono Lake, in the Eastern Sierra near the town of Lee Vining, is one of the oldest lakes in North America — a vast, salty, alkaline sea with no outlet. Its surreal tufa towers, calcium-carbonate spires exposed when the lake level dropped, make it one of California's most photographed landscapes.

Despite its harsh chemistry, Mono Lake teems with brine shrimp and alkali flies that feed millions of migratory and nesting birds, making it a globally important stop on the Pacific Flyway.

Summer and early fall offer warm weather and full access (nearby Tioga Pass to Yosemite is open then); spring and fall bring peak bird migration. Winter is cold and stark but beautiful.

Trillions of brine shrimp and alkali flies feed roughly two million migratory birds annually, including nesting California gulls, eared grebes, and phalaropes that stage here by the hundreds of thousands.

The water is highly alkaline — avoid getting it in your eyes, and rinse off after swimming. Sun and wind are intense; carry water, and watch for sudden afternoon winds when paddling.

Visitors walk the South Tufa boardwalk among the towers, kayak and canoe the buoyant salt water, photograph sunrise and sunset over the tufa, and bird-watch the immense seasonal flocks.

The Kutzadika'a (Mono Lake Paiute) people have lived here for centuries, harvesting the alkali-fly pupae. Diversion of the lake's streams to Los Angeles beginning in 1941 dropped the lake dramatically; a landmark 1994 legal decision now protects its level.

At least 760,000 years old, Mono Lake sits in a volcanic basin beside the young Mono Craters. Its tufa towers form underwater where calcium-rich springs meet the carbonate-rich lake water, then are exposed as levels fall.

Mono Lake is a closed-basin alkaline lake nearly three times as salty as the ocean, its simple but immensely productive food web of algae, brine shrimp, and flies supporting one of the West's great bird gatherings.

The fight to save Mono Lake became a landmark of American water-conservation law and activism, led by the Mono Lake Committee, and the lake remains a symbol of restoring overdrawn western waters.

Just east of Yosemite via Tioga Pass (Highway 120, closed in winter) at Lee Vining on U.S. 395. The South Tufa area off Highway 120 is the main visitor site; a small fee applies.

Stream diversions are now limited to let the lake slowly rise toward a protected level. Stay on boardwalks and trails around the fragile tufa, which is illegal to remove or climb on.

Yosemite's Tioga Pass high country, the Mono Craters, Bodie ghost town, and the Eastern Sierra's Mammoth Lakes and June Lake are all close.

Photograph the South Tufa at sunrise or sunset for the best light, visit in spring or fall for spectacular birding, and combine a visit with Yosemite's high country when Tioga Pass is open.