California, Here We Come – Starting Out

Mono Lake, California

Another trip!

We got back from our arctic adventure on July 4. Fifteen day later, we headed out with our teardrop camper for another adventure. Scott has been wanting to go back to California for several years and something has always intervened – forest fires, other trips, forest fires, waiting too long to book, forest fires. I had been in California on many occasions in recent years, with work or with other people, but Scott hadn’t been there since 2012 and that was just a few spots on the way to the San Juans. He hadn’t been to Yosemite since 1990!

Smoky skies in 2013

In fact, we had cancelled a trip the year before because of forest fires. Obviously, the smoke wreaks havoc with photography. 

So, this year, California was getting above average rainfall and below average fires. We had to go. Even if we would be just back from another trip. The idea was to keep this fairly low-key, which we did.

The itinerary (a little tweaked on the road) looked like this:

First night in Great Basin National Park (this was the tweak; we drove longer to get there and did not stay in Green River, Wyoming, as planned) ...

Great Basin National Park

Second night in Tonopah, Nevada, which is known as a dark sky destination ...

Milky Way over Tonopah

Mono Lake ...

Mono Lake

Three nights in Yosemite at the Big Trees Lodge (AKA Wawona Lodge) because we could not get advance camping reservations ...

Yosemite National Park

Two nights in Sequoia National Park, including a tour of Crystal Cave ...

Sequoia National Park

One night in Mill Valley so we could visit Muir Woods National Monument ...

Muir Woods National Monument

One night at Lassen Volcanic National Park ...

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Three nights at Crater Lake National Park (OK, so that one is in Oregon) …

Crater Lake National Park

An open couple of days to get home.

A big theme of this trip was dark sky. Scott loves doing star and Milky Way photography and I am learning. So, he is always looking for the darkest of the dark skies.

Great Basin National Park

That’s how we ended up changing our plans for an evening and night in Great Basin National Park which, as one of the lesser visited Parks, had an open campsite when we arrived. 

Wheeler Peak

Actually, there were sites at the lower campground (Baker Creek), where we stayed, and the upper campground (Wheeler Peak), which was beautiful, but we didn’t really want to haul the trailer up a winding road without knowing for sure if there would be a site. 

Our Campsite

Plus, at almost 10,000 ft. in elevation, we were concerned Wheeler Peak would be cold. Baker Creek, at 7,500 feet, was lovely. But, we didn’t spend much time in the campsite because we went exploring, took some Milky Way pictures, slept and left fairly early the next morning.

Great Basin National Park, in east-central Nevada near the Utah border, was established as a National Monument in 1922 and as a National Park in 1986. Its name references the Great Basin, the dry and mountainous region between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Mountains that, unlike the rest of the U.S., does not drain its waters into the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Rather, all water in the Basin either evaporates or stays in the Basin.

Bristlecone Pines

The 77,180-acre Great Basin National Park is known for ancient bristlecone pines, Lehman Caves, 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak and Wheeler Peak Glacier. 

Great Basin National Park has 11 species of conifer trees and more than 800 species of plants; the most common are sagebrush, saltbush, single-leaf pinyon, Utah juniper, white fir, aspen, Englemann spruce and Ponderosa pine. 

The Bristlecone Pines, possibly among the oldest living things on Earth, grow in isolated groves just below tree line where the weather is harsh and the growing season short. They grow very slowly, some years not even adding a ring of growth. This slow growth makes their wood very dense and resistant to insects, fungi, rot and erosion.

Great Basin is also home to 61 species of mammals, 18 species of reptiles, 238 species of birds, two species of amphibians and eight species of fish. 

Common Raven

Unfortunately, most stayed hidden, except a little Black-Tailed Jack Rabbit that kept returning to the same spot in the road to the campground.

Black-Tailed Jack Rabbit

The majority of the rocks in Great Basin National Park formed during the Cambrian when western North America was located near the equator. Thick layers of limestone, shale and sandstone accumulated where warm shallow seas lapped at the edge of the continent, similar to the islands of the modern Caribbean. Then, the area went through many episodes of mountain building, during which pressure metamorphosized the sandstone into quartzite, shale into slate, and limestone into marble. Later, magma extruded into overlying rock layers and cooled, forming granite.

Wheeler Peak

The modern basin and range topography is relatively new, forming in the last 30 million years, during which time the crust of the Great Basin was subjected to extensive stretching and thinning, causing the crust to break into blocks. The landscape was later glaciated in several distinct "Ice Ages" over the last 1.5 million years. The modern landscape of the was shaped by glaciation 40,000 to 60,000 years ago and again 14,000 to 25,000 years ago. There is only one remaining glacier, the Lehman Cirque.

Great Basin National Park is also home to the Lehman Cave, which formed 550 million years ago while it was still submerged in a relatively warm, shallow ocean. This is the second time we have been to Great Basin and the second time we did not tour the cave, this time because the schedule just wouldn’t work.

Milky Way

Recognized by the International Dark Sky Association, the Park is home to what some say are the “last true dark skies in the U.S.” Part of the NPS’ Night Skies Program, campsites are designed to enhance stargazing, with room for telescopes and tripods. 

We went up to an observation deck and got some great Milky Way shots.

Tonopah

Then, it was on the Tonopah. As we left in the morning, we encountered a number of Red-Tailed Hawks ...

Red-Tailed Hawk

... several wind farms ...

Wind Farm

... beautiful mountains ...

View across the valley

Ha!

... and some cattle signs that reminded me of Ferdinand the Bull (this one with a hula hoop). These were certainly much spunkier than the typical cattle crossing/open range sign.

Located between Las Vegas and Reno, Tonopah is known for its night skies and actually hosts free star parties with astronomers and telescopes every Saturday night in the summer. It just turned out that we would be passing that way on a Saturday.

A tiny desert mining town (population 2,500), it certainly isn’t much to look at (in fact, I think it is uglier than Rock Springs, Wyoming). It has a few hotels (I must say, the Best Western was pretty nice and we even went to the pool) and a really nasty old casino where we had an OK burger for lunch. It is also home to the Clown Motel. 

Why????? Photos: Scott Stevens

It seems like a place Stephen King might use as a setting for a book!

Tonopah was founded around 1900 with the discovery of silver by prospector Jim Butler, who was allegedly looking for a burro that had wandered off during the night. When he found it the next morning, he picked up a rock to throw at it in frustration and noticed that the rock was unusually heavy. He had stumbled upon the second-richest silver strike in Nevada history. There are still operating mines and a mining museum and park that we did not visit.

Tonopah; Photo: tonopahnevada.com

Committed to astronomy

We did go to the star party, which is in a gravelly field on the edge of town that our GPS almost got us to (we were just over the hill in an empty field). 

The town has built a platform and added some concrete "outdoor furniture" for these parties. There were several astronomers and volunteers with telescopes and probably about a dozen attendees. It's a nice gesture for such a small town. 

Tonopah Star Party

Photo: BBC

Although there wasn't a lot happening and there was no formal program, we did get a good look at Saturn! It looked a lot like the photo at the right. Not spectacular, but very cool that we were actually looking at Saturn. We could see rings and moons.

But, when we tried to take Milky Way shots, we were foiled by what appeared to be a new truck stop with incredibly bright vapor lights right down the hill. 

I am shocked that the town that promotes itself as a dark sky location doesn’t have strict lighting rules for businesses. 

Tonopah ad; Photo: tonopahnevada.com

We had to leave the star party and drive about five miles out of town to get anything. And, there was still light pollution. 

Dark skies plus the glow of town

Oh, well, Tonopah was on our route, so it wasn’t a great loss. And, we did see Saturn.

Mono lake on a beautiful day

Mono Lake

And, then, the next day, we traveled on to Yosemite National Park in California. 

But, before you enter Yosemite from the east, you get a treat. 

Mono Lake.

An alkaline saline soda lake near Lee Vining, California, Mono Lake formed at least 760,000 years ago as a “terminal lake,” meaning that it has no outlet. And, having no outlet means that high levels of salts accumulate in the lake. 

Sediments located below the ash layer hint that Mono Lake could be a remnant of a larger and older lake that once covered a large part of Nevada and Utah, which would put it among the oldest lakes in North America. At its height during the most recent ice age, the lake would have been about 900 feet deep. Sitting near a volcanic fault, the area is considered “geologically active;” the most recent eruption occurred 350 years ago, resulting in the formation of Paoha Island.

Tufa in the lake

The lake’s most interesting attributes are the tufa towers, columns of limestone that rise above the surface of the lake – and dot the shoreline where the formerly higher lake used to sit. Tufa is made when high concentrations of dissolved calcium ions in subsurface springs enter the bottom of the lake and cause huge amounts of calcite to precipitate around the mouths of the springs. The tufa towers originally formed at the bottom of the lake and were revealed when the lake levels fell.

Tufa

The composition of the towers indicates that the area was previously much colder than it is now.

Birds approach a huge tufa tower

The high salinity and alkalinity of the lake keeps it free of native fish. An attempt by the California Department of Fish and Game to stock the lake failed. The lake's food chain is based on the high population of single-celled planktonic algae that reproduce rapidly during winter and early spring after winter runoff brings nutrients to the surface layer of water. By March. the lake is "as green as pea soup" with photosynthesizing algae. 

The lake is famous for a tiny species of brine shrimp, no bigger than a thumbnail, that are endemic to the lake. During the warmer summer months, an estimated 4-6 trillion brine shrimp inhabit the lake and feed on the algae.

Alkali Flies live along the shores of the lake and walk underwater, encased in small air bubbles for grazing and to lay eggs. These flies are an important source of food for migratory and nesting birds.

Alkali Flies

And, are there birds!!!

Wilson's and Red-necked Phalaropes

Mono Lake is a vital resting and eating stop for migratory shorebirds and has been recognized as a site of international importance by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network.

Nearly 2,000,000 water birds, including 35 species of shorebirds, use Mono Lake to rest and eat for at least part of the year. These include American Avocets, Killdeer and Sandpipers. Over 1.5 million Eared Grebes and Phalaropes use Mono Lake during their long migrations. While we were there, we saw several species.

One of the most bird-full places I saw in California

Least Sandpipers were working the shore, eating flies …

Least Sandpiper

… as were Brewer’s Blackbirds …

Brewer's Blackbird strutting his stuff through a cloud of Alkali Flies

Ospreys were nesting on tufa towers. I am not sure where they get their food because the actual lake has no native fish; I suspect they work nearby streams.

Two different Osprey nests

Wilson's Phalarope

But, by far, the biggest populations were the Phalaropes: Wilson's and Red-necked. 

Late every summer tens of thousands arrive from their northern nesting grounds. 

Then, they gorge themselves until they continue migrating, respectively, to South America or tropical oceans.

We saw them perched on tufa …

The tufa is great for providing perches

Foraging along the shore …

Wilson's Phalaropes

Floating in the lake …

Wilson's Phalarope

And, flying in huge flocks ….

Phalarope flock

That was a real treat ….

In addition to migratory birds, a few species spend several months to nest at the lake. Mono Lake has the second largest nesting population of California Gulls, second only to the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

California Gull

And, while we were there, there were thousands of Swallows. There may have been a few other varieties, but the predominant one was the beautiful (and aptly named) Violet-green Swallow. Try as I might, I couldn’t get a good picture of one in flight, but I did find many sitting on the tufa, resting and preening.

Violet-green Swallow

The indigenous people of Mono Lake are from a band of the Northern Paiute, called the Kutzadika'a. The origin of the name "Kutzadika'a" is uncertain but could be a Yokut Native American term for "fly eater." Indeed, the Kutzadika'a eat the tiny Alkali Flies.

The mountains beyond Mono Lake

The term "Mono" is derived from "Monachi," a Yokut term for the tribes that live on both the east and west side of the Sierra Nevada.

Mono Lake has had an interesting conservation history. In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power extended the Los Angeles Aqueduct into the Mono Basin and so much water was diverted that evaporation soon exceeded inflow and the surface level of Mono Lake fell rapidly. By 1982, the lake was reduced to 69 percent of its 1941 surface area. By 1990, the lake had dropped 45 vertical feet and lost half its volume. As a result, alkaline sands and formerly submerged tufa towers became exposed, the water salinity doubled and Negit Island became a peninsula, exposing the nests of California gulls to predators (such as coyotes) and forcing the gull colony to abandon this site.

Dry land as you approach Mono Lake

Studies conducted by university students and researchers in the 1970s led to the formation of the Mono Lake Committee in 1978. It joined with Audubon to fight a now-famous court battle, National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, to protect Mono Lake through public trust laws. 

While these efforts have resulted in positive change, the surface level is still below historical levels, and exposed shorelines are a source of significant alkaline dust during periods of high winds.

After more than a decade of litigation, the California State Water Resources Control Board issued an order in 1994 to protect Mono Lake and its tributary streams. Since that time, the lake level has steadily risen. In 1941 the surface level was at 6,417 feet above sea level. As of October 2013, Mono Lake was at 6,380.6 feet, almost to the goal of 6,392 feet. Of course, droughts cause considerable fluctuations.

Lake levels vary

It was a hot day and, after chasing Violet-Green Swallows and getting temporarily lost in the tufa, it was time to head to Yosemite.

Trip date: July 19-August 2, 2019