Mono Lake

I remember way back in the 70's and early 80's, bumper stickers saying "Save Mono Lake" were everywhere. I never really knew back then what it was all about.

What happened was the City of Los Angeles was taking all of the fresh water that flowed into Mono Lake so little by little the lake was dieing. An action comittee was formed and filed suit forcing the City of Los Angeles to take less water. Must of worked because the lake is still there and I have not seen any of the bumper stickers in years.

Mono Lake is located east of the little town of Lee Vining on Highway 395 along the eastern foothills of the Siera Nevada mountains.

Mono Lake is very barren and there is not much to do but walk and photograph the landscape, but what a great landscape it is! As mentioned before, because of the high salinity of the lake, only brine shrimp can live there and they are food for many species of migrating birds. That means depending on when you visit you could get some great nature photos.

Mono Lake is a saline soda lake. And that is because it has water coming in but there is no wter flowing out which results in water with PH and salinity levels that only brine shrimp can live in. Mono Lake also forms calcium carbonate towers that grow from the bottom of the lake similar to the Tronas Pinnacles we visited a few months ago.