Mono Lake

Remember back in May when we went on a trip to a ghost town and went panning for gold? It was a long time ago, right? Well, we also spent some time checking out the amazing Mono Lake, but I got a little distracted with planning our Australia trip, then taking the Australia trip, and then having three kids at home all day, every day, so I never got around to sharing it with you.

It's time to play catch up and finally share our visit to Mono Lake with you...

Back in May we visited Mono Lake after spending half the day at the nearby gold mining era ghost town of Bodie.

Mono Lake is famous for its amazing limestone tufa towers. The tufa towers are calcium carbonate structures formed by underground fresh water springs welling up in Mono Lake's alkaline water. These tufas should be under water, however in 1941 the City of Los Angeles started diverting water from streams that feed Mono Lake. Over the years this caused Mono Lake to drop by 40 feet, exposing 17,000 acres of exposed lake bed. Since 1994 Mono Lake and its tributaries have been protected and the water level is slowly rising again.