A Rich Community

In the middle distance there rests upon the desert plain what appears to be a wide sheet of burnished metal, so even and brilliant is its surface. It is Lake Mono. At times the waters reflect the mountains beyond with strange distinctness and impress one as being in some way peculiar, but usually their ripples gleam and flash in the sunlight like the waves of ordinary lakes. No one would think from a distant view that the water which seems so bright and enticing is in reality so dense and alkaline that it would quickly cause death of a traveler who could find no other way with which to quench his thirst.

Israel C. Russell
Quaternary History of the Mono Valley, 1889

Mono Lake and its surrounding watershed encompass a unique region in California. Sagebrush, Jeffrey pines, volcanoes, tufa towers, gulls, grebes, brine shrimp, alkali flies, freshwater streams, and alkaline waters comprise an unlikely world at the transition between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Great Basin Desert. Pronghorn antelope graze in the Bodie Hills while yellow-bellied Marmots bask in the High Sierra summer sun. Great Basin spadefoot toads fill the evening air with an endless chorus of croaking while Nighthawks hunt for insects in the fading twilight. Trillions of brine shrimp eat and mate beneath the briny waters of Mono Lake as Wilson's Phalaropes feast on alkali flies in preparation for their non-stop flight to South America. Embracing 14 different ecological zones, over 1000 plant species, and roughly 400 recorded vertebrate species within its watershed, Mono Lake and its surrounding basin encompass one of California's richest natural areas.