opticsandperspectives

Tufa Towers on Mono Lake

We were on our way home from a holiday road trip to Las Vegas and we decided (before the trip started) that we would come back thru Death Valley and stop in to see the Tufa Towers at Mono Lake in California. It was a long day of driving and as we arrived in the area I thought it would be a good idea to head down South Tufa Grove road just off of Hwy 120 East, at the south end of the lake. We were losing light and the next morning was going to be my only chance to see the lake during sunrise so I wanted to find the best place to go. This is truly one of those places that makes you go “wow”. From the parking lot you can already smell the alkaline in the lake and after a fair distance walking across a boardwalk from the parking lot we finally arrived at the lake shore. What an amazing place this was indeed. The first thing we notice as we walked towards the water was that, in the fading light, the ground seemed to move under our feet. Like a black wave as we stepped forward this wave just moved back enough that there was a clearing where our feet landed. Carol and I just looked at each other and wondered what thas was all about. As we found out later these are some kind of alkali bugs that just sit on the shore line. They didn’t bother us, fly in our faces or anything, they just kind of hung around. The real irony of this story is that when we got to the hotel room that evening, I’m guessing, that because the alkaline odor was so strong I developed quite a headache and when I woke up the next morning before sunrise, my head was still pounding and I almost talked myself into going back to bed I felt so bad. I’m glad I pushed myself into heading back to the lake. So anyway I hope you enjoy these images.