Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

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.

Monday morning we got up a bit earlier than Sunday, having slept a bit more soundly Sunday night than Saturday. The uber-dry air continued to be a challenge for both of us but we'd gotten partially acclimated. Just in time to go home! 😒

We made a simple breakfast in the room from groceries we'd brought or bought. I didn't want a repeat of Sunday's hotel breakfast, even though it was again free, because it was too carbs-heavy for me. One of the hallmarks of adulthood is passing up delicious free food when it's not the right food.

One thing we did repeat from Sunday was a morning dip in the hot tub. Ahh, that felt nice. And the air outside was a bit warmer today... by which I mean about 50° instead of closer to 40. 🥶

Back at the room we relaxed a bit, not being in any particular rush to get on with the day. That felt kind of weird.... There was so much we could do but we just felt like relaxing instead.

Checkout time served as more of a motivator than anything else. We packed our bags and left the hotel just before 11. Lacking any stronger plan for where to go we headed north, back toward Lee Vining and Mono Lake. In Lee Vining we returned to the Mono Cone burger stand for lunch, where we ate on Saturday. "So nice it's twice," I quipped.

After lunch we drove around to the south side of Lake Mono. The main visitor area is on the south side. That's where you see Mono Lake's famous tufa spires. We've been there a few times before, most recently in 2017 (link above), so we didn't want to just repeat stuff we've done. Instead we drove to a lesser-visited area, Navy Beach, and saw sand tufa. Then we drove around to an area called Panum Crater and hiked up around a volcanic rhyolite plug.

Around 2:30pm we started heading for home. The scenic way. Which was also the fastest way. And by scenic I mean through Yosemite National Park. On the one hand it was retracing our drive from Friday night/early Saturday morning. On the other hand today it was daylight, not midnight, so we saw a lot more stuff. We pulled off to the side of the road several times to appreciate the beauty and take pictures.

After Yosemite... well, what can I say... it was a few hours of driving through not-Yosemite to get home. We walked through our front door at 9:15 and were completely unpacked in about 20 minutes. Now it's 10pm and I'm going to take a shower to clean off and cool down, then go to bed. It's been a nice 3-day weekend, but tomorrow morning it's back to work with a completely full schedule for the day!