Just outside of the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park is the small town of Lee Vining, named after a local miner when the area folks discovered that their first choice, Lakeview, belonged to another California town. Lee Vining isn’t a place which warrants much discussion so you’re not likely to hear about it from your tour drivers on your way into the park to partake in Yosemite tours, but the town provides much needed support services such as hotels, food, and sporting equipment for those taking in the nearby Mono Lake and that warrants a lot of discussion at the very least, and even better, a diversion to experience it for yourselves if your Yosemite tour driver can be persuaded.
Mono Lake is roughly a million years old, which gives it some added prestige as being one of the oldest lakes in North America. It sits about sixty-four hundred feet above sea level and covers forty-five thousand acres. But the two characteristics of the lake that make it special are its salt level – three times that of the Pacific, and its tufa formations rising out of the lake. These limestone towers are formed when the springs promote the mixing of the calcium rich waters with carbonates. These calcium carbonate deposits accumulate to form the underwater towers upward of thirty feet tall. But these underwater formations have been visible for seventy years now, ever since a lot of the water was diverted out of the lake in the early nineteen forties.
The lake is a favorite for photographers not only for the otherworldly towers rising out of the mirror-like surface, but also for the wonderful way that the colors of the surroundings during sunrise and sunset reflect off of the lake. The area became so popular with visitors that it needed protection, so the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve was formed in the early eighties which set out to protect the relatively delicate structures. Mono Lake makes for interesting images in the winter because no matter how heavily the snow falls in the surrounding area, it doesn’t stay around long anywhere near the lake due to the high salt content in the water and rocks. Other interesting phenomena at the lake during winter are the dark fog of ice crystals which rise from the surface, and on occasion, one can also witness a spectacular rainbow in the fog as the sunlight dances off of the crystals. No matter what time of the year you go, Mono Lake will be like no other lake you’ve ever experienced.
