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Back to Mono Lake - A New View
What do you do after an awesome day-hike like our trek to Ruby Lake? Well, what we did was enjoy a nice dinner and relax in our hotel room that night. The next morning we enjoyed a soak in the hot tub (we were too tired to do it the night before!) then packed our bags, checked out of the hotel, and set out with plans for more hiking!
We trucked back north from Mammoth Lakes, on the route toward home, but stopped after 30 miles at Mono Lake. We'd been to Mono Lake before— including as recently as two days earlier, when we hiked volcanic crevices at Black Point. This time we went around to another lesser-known area around the lake, Navy Beach. Like our trip to the Crowley Lake Columns, this visit was inspired by photography we saw at the Art & Wine Festival.
Mono Lake is well known for its tufa formations. The tufa are erratic towers of limestone (journal link with pictures) formed by the interaction of calcium-rich natural springs with the carbonate-rich alkaline waters of Mono Lake, exposed gradually as the lake's surface has receded. We've visited the main tufa area three or four times over the years. In that photography exhibit at the Art & Wine Festival we learned that at Navy Beach there are tufa formations that look weirdly different. I mean, all tufa are weird looking; but these are differently weird. They look kind of like petrified tree trunks!
Despite their appearance at first glance these stumpy towers are not petrified wood. They are limestone and sand. If you look closely you'll see their fluted structure. That's where fresh spring water from the lake bed bubbled up toward the surface. As it rose it developed many fine, thin layers of limestone (calcium carbonate) as disparate elements reacted and combined.
In the 20th century the waters of Mono Lake receded— not a natural phenomenon but a totally man-made one, as pumping to deliver water to thirsty Los Angeles reduced Mono Lake (and other water bodies in the Owens Valley) to a fraction of their original size. The water's edge moving 100+ meters in from where it used to be exposed previously underwater formations such as these. These also were crusted with fine sand from the lake bed, but once exposed the sand was blown away by wind, further exposing the structures visible today.
We trucked back north from Mammoth Lakes, on the route toward home, but stopped after 30 miles at Mono Lake. We'd been to Mono Lake before— including as recently as two days earlier, when we hiked volcanic crevices at Black Point. This time we went around to another lesser-known area around the lake, Navy Beach. Like our trip to the Crowley Lake Columns, this visit was inspired by photography we saw at the Art & Wine Festival.
Mono Lake is well known for its tufa formations. The tufa are erratic towers of limestone (journal link with pictures) formed by the interaction of calcium-rich natural springs with the carbonate-rich alkaline waters of Mono Lake, exposed gradually as the lake's surface has receded. We've visited the main tufa area three or four times over the years. In that photography exhibit at the Art & Wine Festival we learned that at Navy Beach there are tufa formations that look weirdly different. I mean, all tufa are weird looking; but these are differently weird. They look kind of like petrified tree trunks!
Despite their appearance at first glance these stumpy towers are not petrified wood. They are limestone and sand. If you look closely you'll see their fluted structure. That's where fresh spring water from the lake bed bubbled up toward the surface. As it rose it developed many fine, thin layers of limestone (calcium carbonate) as disparate elements reacted and combined.
In the 20th century the waters of Mono Lake receded— not a natural phenomenon but a totally man-made one, as pumping to deliver water to thirsty Los Angeles reduced Mono Lake (and other water bodies in the Owens Valley) to a fraction of their original size. The water's edge moving 100+ meters in from where it used to be exposed previously underwater formations such as these. These also were crusted with fine sand from the lake bed, but once exposed the sand was blown away by wind, further exposing the structures visible today.
