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After a full morning on Mammoth Mountain, Beth, Jordan, and I were going to head back to Tahoe. But while we were in a new and different part of the world, we figured we'd visit one of the tourist attractions in the area. The dirt road to Brodi, an infamous California ghost town, was closed due to the recent snowfall. Instead, we decided to check out Mono Lake up close. We did not expect to see what we saw. Gigantic tufa, mineral deposits formed from underwater hot springs, were scattered across the edges of the Mono Lake. With 11,000+ ft. mountains surrounding us, 30+ ft. tufa poking through the surface of the lake, and the eerie quiet of miles upon miles of solitude, the scene resembled more of an alien moonscape than an earthly landscape. |
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Mono Lake is 6,382 feet above sea level, but 45 feet lower than when early last century. Starting in 1941, Los Angeles began to siphon water from Lake Mono for its water supply. The thirsty city 350 miles to the south impacted the level of the lake dramatically, revealing the odd tufa that were hiding under water's surface. The volume of Lake Mono--one of the oldest lakes on the continent--dropped more than 50% from 1941 to 1982. The drop in water level devastated the habitat for millions of migratory and nesting birds; islands, important nesting sites for the birds, became peninsulas vulnerable to predators. The lake's salinity doubled, making it more inhospitable to life. The exposed lake bed became the source of airborne particulate matter, reducing the air quality and violating the Clean Air Act. |
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| In an effort to reverse this appalling trend, the Mono Lake Committee was founded in 1978 to conserve Lake Mono's water and restore the high desert lake to its original conditions. By the early 1980s, the Mono Lake Committee grew to 20,000 members and gained legal and legislative recognition for Mono Lake. Now the lake is protected and slowly gaining some water level. (It's eight feet higher than it was in 1982.) |
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In the middle distance there rests upon the desert plain what appears to be a wide sheet of burnished metal, so even and brilliant is its surface. It is Lake Mono. At times the waters reflect the mountains beyond with strange distinctness and impress one as being in some way peculiar, but usually their ripples gleam and flash in the sunlight like the waves of ordinary lakes. No one would think from a distant view that the water which seems so bright and enticing is in reality so dense and alkaline that it would quickly cause death of a traveler who could find no other with which to quench his thirst. Israel C. Russell |
Click
here or on the image below to see more images from Tahoe Lake.
Click HERE
to see a video of a snowball being thrown at me by Jordan!
(It's a .mov file)
