Oldest Lake, Youngest Mountains and a Ghost Town

We arrived at the Mono Lake Scenic Area Visitor’s Center around noon on Friday, 6/9. (Happy Birthday, Rian!!!)  We talked to the staff about camping options, then unhitched the mule and went exploring. Unfortunately, the BLM boondocking spots we wanted were already occupied so we opted for the Lower Lee Vining National Forest Campground. The campground is just a few miles out of town on Hwy 120, situated under the pines on the banks of Lee Vining Creek. Not a bad Plan B. We also drove the scenic June Lake loop, where there are several more campgrounds and fantastic views of the mountains.

Fantastic mountain views at the campground.

The melting snow pack is creating some awesome waterfalls.

Beautiful drive along the June Lake loop.

Fields full of wild iris.

Rog was familiar with this area from his motorcycling days, but I’d never heard of Mono Lake and had no clue what “tufa” was. Do you?  Mona Lake is one of the oldest lakes in North America, over 760,000 years old. It has no outlet, so for thousands of years streams have carried minerals into the lake and, as the water evaporated, the salinity increased. Mono Lake is twice as salty as the ocean! No fish live in the alkaline waters, but it’s far from dead. Trillions of tiny brine shrimp and alkali files are an all-you-can-eat buffet for migratory birds.

So back to the tufa. Freshwater springs containing calcium pump water into the carbonate-rich lake water. Calcium carbonate forms, which is the limestone deposit that makes up the tufa. Weird formations, spires and knobs of limestone, are formed under water and then as the lake levels dip, they are exposed. They look a lot like cave formations without the cave! Very cool.

Tufa formations at Mono Lake's South Beach.

This formation is the nesting spot for a pair of ospreys. There are 30 breeding pairs at Mono Lake, since there are no fish in the lake, they chow down on the trout from the freshwater steams. 

Hard to imagine this was all under water when the tufa was formed.

There is a second variety called “sand tufa” that is formed when the spring water percolates through the sandy lake bottom and incorporates the sand into the formation. Again, as the lake receded the formations were exposed. It looks like rows and rows of intricate sand castles make of solid rock. I’d never heard of tufa before, so it was fun to learn about it and the history of the lake on a ranger-led tour.

Sand castles made of stone.

A close up of the innards. :)

I thought the sand tufa was super cool!

These formations really look like they belong in a cave. Lol. 

Even though this ecosystem has survived for millennia, it was nearly wiped out in the span of just one human lifetime. Los Angeles acquired the water rights to the streams and diverted the fresh water that fed into the lake. Evaporation didn’t slow down however, and as the lake levels lowered, the salts levels rose so that everything would have died. College students, conservationists, and others banded together and waged a decades long court battle to get LA to allow some fresh water back into the lake. They were successful, and while there is still a long way to go, the situation is improving. This year’s record snow pack will certainly help.

In addition to the oldest lake in North America, this area boasts the youngest mountains! The Mona craters are a series of new(er) volcanic mountains, with Panum Crater only 650 years old. An infant in mountain time. 😊 There is a hike around and then down into the crater. There were huge boulders of obsidian, pumice, and other volcanic rock. Fun fact – pumice is formed by an explosive eruption of frothy, molten glass. It cools rapidly, trapping air inside. Obsidian is chemically identical to pumice (I did not know that!), but it oozes out slowly and all the air escapes before it hardens into glassy black rock.

The trail around Panum Crater.

Huge boulders of obsidian.

Volcanic rock plugs in the crater.

The views were great hiking around the crater. Then we followed a trail down into the crater which just sort of disappeared into a huge rubble field. We ended up blazing our own trail over the rocks. Lol. 

Into the crater!

Do you see the trail? Neither did we. Over the rocks it is. Lol. 

On Sunday, we braved the cold front moving in to visit the historic mining ghost town of Bodie. In the late 1800’s the town was a booming gold mining district with a population of 7-8,000, 30 different mines, and 9 processing mills. Mining continued until 1942. The last major landowner hired caretakers to protect the remains of the town from looters and vandals. Then in 1962 it became a state park. Over the years, a series of fires destroyed most of the town and all but one of the mills, but the remaining buildings are being preserved in a state of “arrested decay.”  Exteriors are repaired as needed, but improvements aren’t made and the interiors are left as is.

The ghost town of Bodie.

Lots of old mining equipment litter the town.

All that was left of the bank after a fire was the brick vault.

Rog outside the Firehouse, with this equipment no wonder most of the town burned down!

The 1940's Shell Station. :)

We were most intrigued by the amount of personal property that was left in the buildings. A ranger explained that the roads leading out of town were toll roads and the wagons leaving had to pay by weight, so a lot of possessions were just abandoned. It was very interesting, and would have been a lot more pleasant if the wind hadn’t kicked up while the temperature dropped below freezing and it spit snow at us. I guess that is somewhat fitting, as W.S. Bodey, after whom the town is named, died in a blizzard just months after discovering gold here.  Brrrrrrrr!

The assayers office.

Ragged curtains still hang in the windows of this kitchen.

The old Schoolhouse. At one time there were over 600 children enrolled!
Although the ranger pointed out that most did not attend regularly.

Interior of the old General Store. I'd like to go shopping! :)

The telephone switchboard and an antique typewriter. 

Our plan to take Hwy 120 into Yosemite had to be scrapped, the pass was closed and estimates were that it would remain that way for a couple more weeks. The area had 200% of normal snow pack so many roads and campgrounds are still closed. We hiked along Lee Vining Creek for a few miles, it was beautiful but the stream was running very fast and high.

Lee Vining Creek.

It was so cold the spray froze into icicles!

We walked a couple miles past the spot where they had Hwy 20 closed. No snow down here.

Pretty mountain meadows. 

We each claimed a tree! Lol. 

We leave Tuesday, 6/13, for Markleeville, CA. There are a couple of BLM and National Forest campgrounds in the area, so we’ll figure it out when we get there. See, I’m getting better at this jello planning. 😊 Instead of reservations we have Plan A, Plan B, and sometimes C and D. Lol.