Mono Lake & the Eastern Sierra

Just east of Yosemite's Tioga Pass, an ancient inland sea sits in a volcanic basin looking like the opening shot of a science fiction film. Mono Lake is at least 760,000 years old, nearly three times saltier than the ocean, and studded with limestone towers that grew underwater and now stand exposed like drip castles built by patient gods.

What you're looking at

Tufa towers form when calcium rich freshwater springs bubble up through the alkaline lake and the minerals precipitate into limestone, but only underwater. The towers you walk among at South Tufa were exposed when Los Angeles began diverting the lake's tributary streams in 1941 and the water level fell dramatically. A landmark 1994 decision now protects the lake and its level is managed upward, making Mono both a natural wonder and one of American conservation's great comeback stories. The visitor center in Lee Vining tells it well.

The lake is too salty for fish. Instead it runs on brine shrimp, trillions of them, and alkali flies, which together feed one of the most important migratory bird stopovers in the hemisphere: nearly two million birds a year, including most of California's gulls, phalaropes bound for South America, and eared grebes by the hundreds of thousands in fall.

How to visit

• South Tufa (the essential stop): a mile ish boardwalk and sand loop through the densest towers. Go at sunrise or sunset: low light turns the towers gold and the Sierra crest pink, and midday crowds don't exist yet. Photographers: this is one of California's great tripod spots.
• Navy Beach, next door, is where the brave float, the water's density makes you cork buoyant, and the salt rinse afterward is part of the story.
• Panum Crater (2 miles round trip): climb a 600 year old volcanic dome for the aerial view of the lake; the rim trail crunches over obsidian.
• Black Point Fissures and the north shore for solitude seekers.

Make it a 395 day

Start with the aerial view: the pullout at Conway Summit, ten minutes north of Lee Vining on Highway 395, lays the whole basin out below you, lake, islands, and desert ringed by the Sierra crest. It's the best free overlook on the corridor and the photo that explains the place in one frame.

Mono Lake anchors the best single day stretch of Highway 395: Tioga Pass descent (summer), lunch in Lee Vining (the famous Whoa Nellie Deli lives in a gas station and outcooks most restaurants), South Tufa, then either the June Lake Loop's aspen and lake scenery or south to Mammoth for hot springs and dinner. In fall, the June Lake aspens plus low angle tufa light make this arguably California's best photography day.

When to visit

Summer: everything open, warm evenings, Tioga access to Yosemite. Fall: aspen gold, grebe clouds, crisp light, the connoisseur's season. Winter: snow dusted tufa is magnificent and utterly silent (dress for real cold; Tioga closed). Spring: wildflowers on the volcanic soils and migrating birds arriving.

Before you go

Plan your day

Tell the planner where you're starting from and when, and it builds a timed itinerary from this guide's stops.