Kathleen's Window: Mono Lake- Panum Crater and Eery Tufas!

May 7, 2014

Wednesday morning the stormy weather over the eastern Sierra Nevada moved on. As the snow quickly melted, we drove a short way north to Mono Lake. We checked out the exhibits at the visitor center and got advice from the ranger on where to hike. Then we found a food truck in the town of Lee Vining selling Hawaiin burritos and made a quick stop to fuel ourselves up before our hike.

Sunshine melted the snow in our June Lake camp.

Mono Lake from the Visitors Center, Looking North

Looking west from Lee Vining

Food trucks that make a few items really well are a treat. This one made Hawaiian Burritos with fruit salsa that were great!

Surprisingly upscale market in Lee Vining

Greg's commentary on Mono Lake geology and water wars – Mono lake is a desert sink, a basin formed by huge lava flows from nearby volcanoes, that has collected runoff from the surrounding mountains since it was a much larger lake in the ice age. Shoreline benches visible on the mountainside show that the lake was up to 900 feet deep 13,000 years ago. It was about 150 feet deep when Mark Twain visited in the 1860's. The few mountain streams flowing in to the lake were just able to balance the fierce evaporation rate and maintain a steady elevation, but the continuous evaporation concentrated the salts in the lake to about twice that of sea water. In the early 1920's, Los Angeles began a project to bring desert water down to supply the city. In 1941, the project was complete and the collector aqueduct began capturing fresh stream water from many of the small streams feeding Mono Lake. In 1970, the city doubled their water take and completely dried up many feeder streams. The lake level dropped about 45 feet by 1995, halving the area of the lake and concentrating the salts to about 3 times the concentration of sea water. Local citizens and scientists began legal action to preserve the lake, finally winning in the California Supreme Court in 1994. The lake will be restored to a sustainable level over the next two decades.

Our first stop after a ride down another gravel road, was Panum Crater on the south side of the lake. Panum Crater is the youngest (600 years old) and smallest of a chain of small ryolite volcanoes in the Mono Basin. It is a perfectly preserved (very little erosion or plant growth) ryolite dome surrounded by a cinder ring.

Heading down the one-lane sand road to Panum Crater

Climbing up the outer cinder ring

Looking at Mono Lake with the cinder ring on the left and the ryolite plug on the right.

After a short hike up to the crater's rim, we chose to climb further, up into the plug. We found more shiny, black obsidian like we saw at Obsidian Dome. Hiking to the north end of the plug brought us amazing views of Mono Lake below us, and snow squalls in the range to the west of us. Retracing our steps back to the rim, we walked around it part way, and decided to save our time and energy for the tufas on the shoreline below.

Squeeze-up or spire of obsidian that cooled before it toppled over. This formation is 600 years old.

Enjoying the refreshing breeze on top pf the ryolite plug.

The small rock, obsidian, weighed more than the big rock, pumice.

Breadcrust Bomb of pumice that cracked when partly solidified.

Foamy glass structure of pumice

Volcanoes make Kathleen strong!

Basking on a warm rock...

The cinder ring surrounding the plug


Balancing on the cinder ring with the Sierra Nevada in the background.

Looking back out the road from Panum

Another short drive down a gravel road brought us to the shoreline. Walking across the old lake bed we finally reached the current lake level and wandered around in the tufa spires. The tufa spires consist of calcium carbonate that was precipitated out of the acidic groundwater when it surfaced into the alkaline lake water. All of the spires formed under water and grew upward as the tufa tubes channeled new groundwater up toward the lake surface. The 45-foot tall towers that were actively growing before 1970 now are high and dry. New tufas are growing down along the new shoreline. Higher up the hillside are ice age tufas that grew when the lake was much deeper.

Tufa spires on the beach

I did taste the lake water. It was quite salty, but also a bit soapy from the sulfate and bicarbonate.

This osprey has a secure nest site and fishes the freshwater streams above the lake.

Most tufa towers are at the water's edge. Others are back up in the beach grass. The cream colored spires create a bizarre landscape, especially in contrast to the blue-green water, the beige desert, the pale green vegetation, and the dark snow-covered granite peaks behind. We were lucky to experience the last of the storm moving out as the moody clouds scuttled past.

As the sun got low, we searched out a nearby boondocking site. We found a great place along a little used gravel road on a small bluff overlooking Rush Creek. We had a view of Mono Lake with an old settlers cabin on one side, and the creek and the snow capped mountains on the other. The sound of rushing Rush Creek soothed our spirits for a short time before we decided that it was time to get out of the ever present wind. The temperature was dropping quickly which meant another chilly night in the rig, bundled up under many covers!