Los Angeles started killing Mono Lake in 1941 and accidentally created an art installation. The lake, already ancient and alkaline, began shrinking as its tributary streams were diverted to the LA Aqueduct. As water levels dropped, strange towers emerged from the shallows - tufa columns built by calcium-rich springs meeting the lake's carbonated water, hidden for centuries, now exposed to air like the bones of a dying beast. The towers are hauntingly beautiful, and they exist because the lake was being murdered. When environmental lawsuits finally forced LA to limit its take, the lake began slowly rising, and the tufa began slowly disappearing again. The beauty was temporary, like everything.
Mono Lake has no outlet. Water arrives from Sierra Nevada snowmelt and leaves only through evaporation, concentrating salts over 760,000 years. The lake is 2.5 times saltier than the ocean and strongly alkaline - undrinkable but not lifeless. Brine shrimp thrive in billions; alkali flies crust the shoreline. These support millions of migratory birds: California gulls nest on the islands (the lake's isolation protected them from predators), grebes and phalaropes fatten on shrimp. The ecosystem is harsh and productive, a reminder that life adapts to conditions we'd find unbearable.
Los Angeles reached Mono Lake in 1941, extending the aqueduct that had already drained Owens Lake. The city diverted Rush Creek, Lee Vining Creek, and two other streams that fed Mono, claiming water rights purchased decades earlier. The lake began to shrink. By 1982, it had lost half its volume and dropped 45 feet. Salinity doubled. Land bridges connected formerly isolated islands to shore, allowing coyotes to reach gull nesting colonies. The birds began to fail. The ecosystem that had functioned for millennia began collapsing in decades.
Tufa forms where calcium-rich freshwater springs meet the lake's carbonate-laden water. The calcium precipitates as calcium carbonate, building towers around the spring vents over thousands of years. While the lake was full, the towers grew underwater, invisible. As LA drained the lake, the towers emerged - strange, knobbed columns that look like nothing else on Earth. The exposed tufa became Mono Lake's most photographed feature, appearing in countless films and album covers. The tragedy is obvious: we could see the tufa because the lake was dying. The beauty was a symptom of murder.
The Mono Lake Committee formed in 1978 to save what remained. Lawsuits challenged LA's water rights, invoking the public trust doctrine - the principle that certain resources belong to everyone and can't be destroyed for private benefit. The litigation reached the California Supreme Court, which ruled in 1983 that the state had authority to protect Mono Lake regardless of LA's water rights. The State Water Board eventually set minimum lake levels, requiring LA to reduce diversions. The lake has risen 14 feet since 1994; it has 20 more feet to go. Some tufa has disappeared underwater again - the price of restoration.
Mono Lake is located east of Yosemite National Park on Highway 395. The Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Center interprets the lake's ecology and history. The South Tufa Area offers close access to tufa towers; a trail leads among the formations. Navy Beach has more tufa and swimming (the water is buoyant and soapy-feeling). The town of Lee Vining has services; June Lake offers additional lodging. The tufa is best photographed at sunrise or sunset when warm light defines the formations. Summer is busy; fall offers color and fewer visitors. The lake is eerily beautiful in winter, though access may be limited by snow.
Located at 38.00°N, 119.00°W in Mono County, California. From altitude, Mono Lake is a striking blue circle in a volcanic basin east of the Sierra Nevada crest. The tufa towers are visible along the southern and eastern shores as irregular light formations at the waterline. Volcanic craters (Mono Craters, Paoha Island) surround and punctuate the lake. The town of Lee Vining sits at the southwestern shore where Highway 395 passes. Tioga Pass, the eastern entrance to Yosemite, climbs into the Sierra to the west. The aqueduct infrastructure that drained the lake is visible in the stream valleys. The lake's bathtub ring - exposed shoreline from lower water levels - marks its former extent.