A sail on the lake develops a group of pictures of rare beauty and grandeur. Long ranks of snowy swans on the dark water; clouds of ducks enveloped in silvery spangles. The mighty barren Sierra rising abruptly from the water to a height of seven thousand feet, and stretching north and south for twenty miles with rows of snowy peaks. Ranges of cumulus clouds swelling in massive bosses of pearl—cloud mountains and rock mountains equally grand…
John Muir
excerpted from his journals
SIGHTSEEING THE HARD WAY
Here is a journey
we do not recommend: Beginning at the summit of Mt.
Warren in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and traveling east
we will descend down steep, avalanche-prone slopes and
drainages, dropping nearly 6,000 ft in elevation within
five miles. At the western shore of Mono Lake we will
slip into salty, alkaline waters, past tufa-coated pumice
boulders, and begin a leisurely swim of about 13 miles
across the surface of the lake. After several miles we
will navigate the channel between Negit and Paoha, Mono
Lake’s volcanic islands. Several miles later we will
emerge from the eastern edge of the lake and shake the
brine shrimp out of our swimsuits. The alkaline water has
transformed us into human prunes, but we will nonetheless
begin hiking across a thin strip of muddy, wetland
shoreline to the sagebrush scrub. We soon find our way
into the Adobe Hills, hiking just north of the Cowtrack
Mountains. Somewhere between Mt. Warren and here, we have
entered the western edge of the Great Basin.
ON THE EDGE
The Mono Basin sits along the western margin of what
is commonly referred to as the Great Basin. Hydrologists,
biologists, and geologists each assign different
boundaries and definitions to this vast landscape. From
the Sierra Nevada to the Wasatch Range in Utah, and from
eastern Oregon to the
CA/NV/AZ border,
this large geographical area has no outlet to the ocean,
and is punctuated with long, north-south trending
mountain ranges and basins. Sagebrush is the most common
shrub, while pinon pine and juniper dot higher
elevations. Pronghorn antelope, rattlesnakes, sagebrush
lizards, and Golden Eagles make their home here. The
Great Basin is one of the four great deserts in North
America, among the four it has the highest average
elevation and coldest average temperatures.
SALINE SISTERHOOD
Mono Lake is but one of many lakes spread throughout the Great Basin. The greatest concentration of lakes lie along the western margin of the Great Basin—Mono, Walker, Pyramid, Honey, Goose, Abert, and Malheur. On the eastern margin of the Great Basin lies Great Salt Lake, an impressive saline lake that together with its western sisters is also a remnant of wetter, ice age climate. Fifteen thousand years ago nearly every valley in the Great Basin was filled with water, some filled together to form inland seas. Since the onset of a drier, warmer climate these lakes have shrunk or dried up completely. They have no outlets, so their waters have varying concentrations of salt and other minerals. Their unique chemistry typically nurtures a productive ecosystem. They are all an oasis of bird life in the stark landscape of the Great Basin. Millions of migratory birds depend on these lakes for food and refuge. Great Salt Lake and Mono Lake together provide nesting habitat for most of the North American population of California Gulls. These two lakes also provide critical habitat for most of the migratory Eared Grebes in North America and most of the migratory Wilson’s Phalaropes in the Western Hemisphere.
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