Bright and sunny and cool. We broke camp and stopped at the nearby Forest Service office to get info about Mono Lake, down the hill from where we've been the last two days. Mono is 6x6 miles, with two large islands. It has streams feeding it but no outlet but evaporation, leaving minerals in the water. It's very salty and alkaline. A beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, but the notable feature is tufa, mineral spires formed underwater and now sticking up as much as 20' above it. We drove about 1/4 of the way around the lake to a spot where we could hike down to the shore and see abundant tufa formations. We launched the canoe and explored tufa spires offshore. That was great fun.
There are numerous small volcanos in the area, forming Mono Craters, the youngest mountain range in N. America. The most recent eruption was 600 years ago.
We drove an hour north, crossing a mountain pass along the way, to the sleepy small town of Bridgeport, where the parking on main street is back-in angle parking. Never seen that before. We set up camp at a friendly little private campground on a reservoir. Dinner in town at a good burger joint. An interesting day, and no long drives for once.
No comments:
Post a Comment