The hook
One of the oldest lakes on the continent — at least 760,000 years in its basin — twice as salty as the ocean, ringed by limestone towers that grew underwater — drained nearly to death by Los Angeles and saved by a lawsuit that rewrote California water law.
01Why it's worth it
Mono is at least 760,000 years old, and everything about it is off-planet: the tufa towers (calcium springs meeting alkaline water, exposed when the lake dropped), water so buoyant and mineral it feels oiled, trillions of brine shrimp feeding millions of migrating birds, black volcanic islands offshore. The story is the other half. In 1941 LA's aqueduct began taking the streams that feed it; by the 1980s the lake had lost half its volume and the towers stood beached like ruins. A handful of researchers sued under the public-trust doctrine and won — the 1983 decision now protects the lake with legally mandated levels, one of the great conservation wins anywhere. So the beached towers you walk among at South Tufa are simultaneously the spectacle and the evidence. Swim off Navy Beach if it's warm; you bob like a cork and come out crusted white.
02How to experience it
Highway 395 at Lee Vining, the eastern foot of Tioga Pass — which makes it the natural continuation of a Tuolumne day and the second anchor of the Eastern Sierra ring with Bodie. South Tufa (small fee) at dawn or dusk; the Mono Lake Committee's canoe tours in summer get you among the towers; Panum Crater's obsidian dome adds an hour. Lee Vining's Whoa Nellie Deli, improbably inside a gas station, is the standard feed.
The honest note
The alkaline flies are not a rumour. The shoreline is carpeted with them — they part in front of you as you walk and close behind. They do not bite and they are part of why two million birds come, but nobody warns you first: "The shores are also covered with alkaline flies that scatter in front of you as you walk, I'd imagine that would be pretty fun for kids!"
South Tufa is the only reliable access, it charges a small fee, and it is a short flat walk rather than a wander. The towers elsewhere on the shore are harder to reach and often fenced.
The float is seasonal and unpleasant if you get it wrong. The water is twice as salty as the ocean; it stings any cut and dries you crusted white. Rinse.
It is a long way from anywhere — 4½ hours from San Francisco over Tioga Pass, and Tioga closes with the first snow, which turns the trip into an eight-hour drive round the south.
From the locals
Mono Lake is almost never recommended alone. It arrives as one stop on Highway 395, which is the actual unit of travel here: "395 might be the prettiest highway in the US. Bishop to Sonora Junction is just magical. Make time for stopoffs at the Crowley Lake stone columns, June Lake Loop, Obsidian Dome, Grant Lake, Mono Lake tufa, Bodie is worth the detour."
Another put the whole corridor together, and named this pin's neighbours in one breath: "Very much recommend a visit. Indeed, that whole Eastern Sierra gig is worth a summer trip. Take Highway 4 or 108 over the crest… then cruise 395 and check out the majesty of the eastern slope. Tons of hot springs, Mono Lake, Bishop, the ancient bristlecones — all very worthwhile."
The practical instruction, from someone planning six days around it: "You've got to do mono lake south where the tufa towers are and float — while near mono you should check out the ghost town of Bodie."
And the reason the lake still exists, from a Californian arguing about water: "Mono lake is a unique habitat. The amount of water it contributes to the thirsty south is minor to them and major to the lake. See Owens lake, gone now due to water diversion to the LA aqueduct. Now it's a source of alkaline dust storms. It's the largest single source of dust pollution in the country. 2 million migratory birds feed on the brine shrimp." Owens Lake is what Mono was thirty years from becoming.