Just one hour from Yosemite is an Ice Age lake that births its own salt formations

It’s saltier than the ocean

Mono Lake sits 6,400 feet up in California’s Eastern Sierra, about 13 miles east of Yosemite. The water here is roughly 2.5 times saltier than the ocean because the lake has no outlet.

Salts and minerals just keep building up. Rising from the shoreline, you’ll spot pale limestone spires and knobs that look like they belong on Mars.

The lake covers about 65 square miles of high desert and has been here for over a million years, making it one of the oldest in North America.

What built those strange towers is even wilder than how they look.

The Paiute people who harvested flies from the shore

The Kootzaduka’a, the southernmost band of the Northern Paiute, have called the Mono Basin home since time immemorial. Their name comes from the alkali fly pupae they traditionally harvested along the water’s edge.

Then in 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power started diverting water from the lake’s tributary streams, piping it 350 miles south.

Over four decades, Mono Lake dropped 45 vertical feet and lost half its volume. The salinity doubled, and towers that had formed underwater stood exposed in open air.

A grassroots fight saved the lake from drying up

That exposed lakebed sparked a fight. The Mono Lake Committee launched a grassroots campaign that ended with a landmark 1994 state ruling. The decision forced Los Angeles to cut its diversions and let the lake recover.

Water levels have climbed back since then, but the lake still sits below the mandated target.

You can see the high-water marks on the tufa towers themselves, stained lines that show you exactly where the surface used to reach before the city came for the water.

Freshwater springs build stone towers underwater

Tufa forms entirely underwater. Calcium-rich freshwater springs seep up from the lake bottom and hit the carbonate-heavy lake water.

That chemical reaction produces calcium carbonate, which slowly builds around the spring openings over decades and centuries. Some towers grew more than 30 feet tall beneath the surface before anyone ever saw them.

You only see them now because falling water levels left them standing in the open. The formations are fragile, so you view them from the ground and never climb on them.

Walk right up to the spires at South Tufa

South Tufa holds the largest and most dramatic cluster of towers at Mono Lake.

A flat, one-mile interpretive trail leads from the parking area straight to the shore, where formations stand right at the water’s edge. In summer, free naturalist-guided walks run daily.

The rest of the year, you can catch them on weekends.

If you’d rather go solo, interpretive signs along the path explain the geology, ecology and history. South Tufa is a Federal Fee Area with a small entry charge, and national park passes get you in.

Get there 30 minutes before sunrise for the best light

Mono Lake ranks as one of the top landscape photography spots in the western U.S., and the reason shows up at dawn. Sunrise paints the tufa gold and pink with the Sierra Nevada behind them.

At sunset, warm light hits the western faces while the lake mirrors the sky. On calm mornings, the still water doubles every tower in reflection.

Night photographers stick around for the dark skies and shoot the Milky Way arching over the formations. For any of it, you want to arrive 20 to 30 minutes early.

Trillions of brine shrimp and flies that dive underwater

The water is harsh, but Mono Lake runs on three small organisms in enormous numbers. Microscopic algae form the base.

Trillions of brine shrimp, a species called Artemia monica found only here, feed on that algae.

Along the shore, alkali flies pack the ground and actually dive underwater inside tiny air bubbles to feed and lay eggs. No fish survive in the salty, alkaline water, and that’s exactly why the shrimp and flies thrive.

Nothing down there eats them.

A million grebes turn the lake black every fall

Mono Lake sits on the Pacific Flyway, and about 1 to 2 million migratory birds pass through each year.

Around 50,000 California Gulls nest on the islands every summer, the second-largest colony in North America after Great Salt Lake.

In fall, nearly one million Eared Grebes gather on the water, so many they look like a dark blanket spread across the surface.

Wilson’s Phalaropes arrive in summer, double their body weight on shrimp and flies, then fly 3,000 miles to South America. Ospreys nest on top of offshore tufa towers, keeping their chicks safe from ground predators.

Float like a cork at Navy Beach

Swimming in Mono Lake feels a lot like floating in the Dead Sea. The dense, mineral-rich water makes it nearly impossible to sink, so you just lean back and bob.

Navy Beach on the south shore is where most people go for a dip. Keep the water out of your eyes and away from any cuts, because the alkaline sting is real.

Bring fresh water to rinse off when you’re done. Outside of summer, the lake runs cold enough to cut your swim short.

Paddle a kayak between the limestone towers

All non-motorized boats are welcome on Mono Lake. Kayaks and canoes launch easiest from Navy Beach, where the parking area sits close to the water.

From a boat, you see the tufa towers from angles you can’t reach on foot, drifting between formations that rise right out of the lake. The Mono Lake Committee runs guided canoe tours on summer weekends.

Stay near shore and watch for sudden high winds that build fast out here. The islands are off-limits from April 1 through Aug. 1 to protect nesting gulls.

Hike a 600-year-old volcano covered in obsidian

Just south of the lake sits Panum Crater, the youngest volcano in the Mono Craters chain. The craters range from about 600 to 40,000 years old.

Two short trails take you to the rim and the top of the plug dome, where you get a full sweep of the Mono Basin, the lake and the Sierra Nevada.

The ground around the crater is blanketed in obsidian and pumice from past eruptions. You reach Panum via a short dirt road off Highway 120 East, about three miles from Highway 395.

Two volcanic islands you can see but cannot visit

Two large islands rise from Mono Lake, both built by volcanic activity. Negit Island is a dark volcanic cone where California Gulls nest by the thousands.

Paoha Island is the bigger of the two, and its name comes from a Paiute word for the spirits believed to live in its hot springs.

From the shore at Old Marina and South Tufa, you can see both islands against the Sierra backdrop.

They’re closed to visitors from April through August for the birds, and they remind you that the Mono Basin sits in an active volcanic zone.

Explore Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve in California

You’ll find the reserve on Highway 395, 13 miles east of Yosemite near Lee Vining.

Start at the Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Center north of town, where exhibits cover the lake’s natural and human history, and a viewing deck out back looks straight across the water.

For South Tufa, turn east onto Highway 120 and follow signs about five miles to a left turn onto a dirt road.

If you have extra time, Bodie State Historic Park, a preserved Gold Rush ghost town, sits about an hour north and pairs well with a lake day.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• This ancient California lake traps everything that enters — and turns it to stone
• California’s most-photographed bay has a Viking castle, sunken wrecks, and a secret island
• California has a secret bay bigger than you’d believe and it dodged discovery for centuries