A Magnificent time at Mono Lake

Mono Lake is a saline lake in on the east side of the Sierra Mountains in California.  The small town of Lee Vining is gateway to both Mono Lake and the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park.  Mono Lake is important habitat for nesting and migrating birds.  It is also one of the only places you can find Tufta rock formations.   The Tufa formations kind of look like weird columns of rock.

My friend, Mary from Quebec and I made our first stop at the Visitors Center.  A Ranger pointed out a couple of locations where we could boondock.  He did not steer us wrong!   We found a great site that was big enough for my 36’ rig and her 32’ rig.  Another rig or two would have fit as well.   We had great views of Mono Lake in front of us and the Sierra Mountains behind us.  The sunrises over the lake were wonderful, the vast views of the stars at night were incredible and if that wasn’t enough our 2nd evening there we came home to a double rainbow over our rigs. (It really landed on the island in the middle of the lake, which was cool, but driving in with rainbows on your rigs was a bonus!)

The rainbow was visible for over a half hour and at times you could see both ends of it.  An awesome sunset over the mountains followed the rainbow. It was a magnificent event to experience.   We topped the night off with a campfire and decided that our spot was probably our ‘end of the rainbow pot of gold’ and maybe we should stay and enjoy what the area had to offer from here instead of moving to each place.  So we stayed and enjoyed our views of Mono Lake and made day trips to Yosemite, June Lakes & Saddlebag lake and the Mammoth Lakes area.

Sunrise over Mono Lake

Lakeside

Here is a promo video that gives you some of the feel of Mono Lake.  The Mono Lake Visitors Center movie is very good.  It gives the history of the lake and the native inhabitants of the area.