Framedlight

We did a lot on 31st October. Following our visit to the tufa we had breakfast at the Nicely's all American diner in Lee Vining. It had to be pancakes, egg and bacon with maple syrup for me. Mairi had a sort of scone thing which was giant. We went back to the campsite, filled our water containers up and said goodbye. On the way out of Lee Vining we popped into the Mono Lake Committee building and watched a video on their conservation success and bought a couple of cards. The it was time to go south on the 395 although we made a diversion around the June Lake Loop which lies a few miles south of Lee Vining. Here are 4 lakes and we were hoping for some nice autumn colour but the aspens were largely over. The lake areas were quite commercialised and a little bit disappointing although there was hardly anyone else around. In the winter this is used as a ski area, but the snow hadn't arrived. On the way down we passed Mount Dana which can be seen in the first pictur...

We left Bodie around 3.30pm and headed back towards Mono Lake for sunset. Coming down the hill on the 395 towards Lee Vining there is a stunning view of the lake and mountains beyond, although it was quite hazy. There was no wind and the lake showed lovely reflections of the hills. We hadn't decided where to go for a sunset shot so we tried  the visitor centre on the northern side of the lake. It was closed naturally and the lawn had a handful of mule deer grazing on it. It wasn't quite what we wanted although the drive to it showed the area where High Plains Drifter was filmed. We ended up going to the tufa again and getting another dose of that intoxicating smell of the lake and the sage scrub. We stayed until it had got dark and the moon was up, and then went back for our last night in Lee Vining. The campsite was to close the next evening and the snow was supposed to arrive the day after. One of the ladies who worked there had her home in Las Vegas and came to Lee Vining in...

Lee Vining lies near the shore of Mono Lake, a large expanse of extremely alkaline water. The lake formed in a depression after a volcanic eruption. Several streams feed it, but as there is no outlet, the water only leaves by evaporation and so the salt levels have gradually grown more and more concentrated. This alkaline water does not support much life except for brine shrimps which feed off algal blooms, but these shrimps and the black flies that eat them provide for a very large population of migratory birds. As Los Angeles enlarged the city created the rights to take water from a large area of southern California, including Mono Lake. Owens Lake dried up completely and Mono Lake was severely depleted, so much so that the tufa which is now seen along the shoreline emerged from above the waterline and the birds using the tufa islands for nesting were threatened by predators which could walk out along the exposed spits to eat the eggs and chicks. The salinity of the lake grew from 50...