After leaving the comfort and luxury of my Reno hotel suites, I headed south along Highway 395, through the high desert county of Nevada, then back into California, finally dropping out of the high desert "down" to Mono Lake, at an elevation of around 6,300 feet. The city by the lake is Lee Vining, which is also at the intersection of Highway 120 which leads up the back side of the high Sierra Nevada mountains to Tioga Pass and Yosemite National Park. But, I am getting ahead of myself. I decided to camp about 4 miles up highway 120 in a beautiful National Forest campground called Aspen at about 7,500 feet. As I was using all new camping equipment and this was the first camping adventure of this trip, I decided to go early to the campground and set up as I would not want to do it in the dark. All went well and my camp was set up by about 3:30 PM. Then about 4:00 PM, the sun went behind a mountain peak and the weather started turning cold.
It's been a while since I experienced such sustained cold out in the open. According to my temp gauge, it got down to 25...and I forgot to figure in my plans that nights in October are about 14 hours long...and the warmest place I knew of was in my sleeping bag. So, I went to bed early wearing 5 layers of clothes, gloves, two hoodies over my head, and a ski mask. I stayed there for 12 hours, then got up in the darkness to make coffee and breakfast so I could be a Mono Lake at sunrise. The reason is that sunrise is the best time to photograph the famous Mono Lake Tufas.
What's a tufa you ask? Its a special rock formation made of limestone that can only grow underwater. What makes these tufas so special is the way they form. Typically, underwater springs rich in calcium (the stuff in your bones) mix with lake water rich in carbonates (the stuff in baking soda). As the calcium comes in contact with carbonates in the lake (Mono Lake is a salt lake and very high in mineral content), a chemical reaction occurs resulting in calcium carbonate, otherwise known as limestone. The calcium carbonate precipitates (settles out of solution as a solid) around the spring, and over the course of decades to centuries, a tufa tower will grow. Tufa towers grow exclusively underwater, and some grow to heights of over 30 feet. The reason visitors see so much tufa around Mono Lake today is because the lake level fell dramatically after water diversions began in 1941.
In 1941, the city of Los Angeles began diverting water from 4 of the 6 streams that feed Mono Lake for its own use. Not only did the level of the lake start falling, the alkalinity of the water started rising, killing off the billions of tiny shrimp that inhabit the lake, and causing problems among all the bird species that feed off of the shrimp. Since 1941, the lake dropped over 50 feet and exposed the tufas you see in my photos.
In 1994, the State of California issued new guidelines that will eventually restore 25 feet of lake depth that will begin to bring back some of the original natural conditions of the lake itself. It will take many, many years and the lake can never be restored as it was, but it will be better for the wildlife than it is now. Most of the tufas at the lake that you see here will eventually be back underwater.
As for photographing the tufas, the best time is around sunrise. I enjoyed walking around looking for good photo opportunities and found some. It would have been very nice to have some interesting cloud formations, but as it has been for much of my trip, the sky was cloudless. Never-the-less, I do have some interesting photos of some very strange limestone formations.
From Mono Lake, I headed straight up to Tioga Pass (a scary steep road) and into the High Country of Yosemite National Park. Stay tuned.
1 comment:
Very cool!
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