We decided to take the long way home after visiting our daughter Ann in Sacramento. We traveled across the Sierras on Hwy. 89 to Hwy. 395 for our trip south. Over the years we have visited Mammoth and June Lakes on many occasions to ski. We passed Mono Lake each time without stopping. This year we decided to visit the lake and see what we had been missing. We first visited in the evening and then the next morning after spending the night in Mammoth.
We drove from Sacramento over Monitor Pass down to the Mono Lake.
Mono Lake is 2X saltier than the ocean and 100X more alkaline. These are its famous tufa formations, consisting mainly of sodium chloride (salt) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). As a result of Mono Lake’s alkaline nature, objects float higher than normal. Fully loaded canoes float as if empty. Swimmers find it hard to sink. Gulls have difficulty keeping their webbed feet in the water when they paddle. This lake is an interesting study in buoyancy.
This tufa is twice as tall as Pete.
This place is OTHERWORLDLY!
The weather was picture perfect. The mountaintops are beginning to collect some snow.
The colors in November are spectacular.
Evening sky as we were driving to Mammoth Lakes
Pete’s video of Mono Lake is above. It lasts about 4 minutes.
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