In the middle of the Eastern Sierras in California near Yosemite National Park, you’ll find the ancient and mystical Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve.
Mono Lake is known as the Dead Sea of California. It’s 2.5 times saltier than the ocean and high in alkalinity. This is because Mono Lake has no outlet and only collects water where large quantities of salt accumulate.
Choice Touring adds flexibility into a Globus tour. You have your big-ticket attractions on the tour, but also a selection of curated experiences in key and off-the-beaten-path destinations – included in the package price.
Mono Lake is situated in the Eastern Sierras near the town of Lee Vining. It’s 22 miles (35 km) southeast of Yosemite’s Tioga Pass entrance and 20 minutes from Mammoth Lakes.
Mono Lake is also a good example of the power of people coming together for a good cause: to protect Mother Nature and unique ecosystems like this. Mono Lake’s surface level once stood at an elevation of 6,417 feet in 1941
It was during this year that the Los Angeles Department of Water built a reservoir in the Mono Basin. This aqueduct providing LA with water drained Mono Lake’s main tributaries raising the salinity level of the lake and taking away its freshwater supplies.
The dropping levels caused a land bridge to form between the shore and Negit Island, home of thousands of nesting migratory birds. This land bridge gave predators a way to kill huge portions of the bird population causing an ecological crisis.