Mono Basin Journal
A roundup of less political events at Mono Lake
by Geoff McQuilkin
The things that go unseen
in the Mono Basin are sometimes small, sometimes vast.
The hawk snatching a deer mouse from the sagebrush, a
tree growing in the sun, a moment's flare of color at
sunset. And most times they happen just around the
corner, down by the creek, over the top of a hill, around
the back of a mountain peak.
Such was an early winter storm that threatened bad weather yet only delivered gusty winds and a brief sprinkle of rain to town. But that was in town; a bit further away the wind howled over the Sierra crest as clouds wrapped Mt. Conness, visiblity went from miles to feet in minutes, and snow stacked up ankle high on bare ground. Blowing almost horizontally on the ridge, the frozen flakes blasted over granite crags and then abruptly began to trace lazy spirals in the calm lee of the mountain. Just another fall day in the mountains.
The winter hasn't quite followed through from that beginning, though, and ice gripping the creekside boulders is perhaps the best reminder we have of the season, as snow is hard to find.
But every winter creates its own sights, snow or not. A stream of still days has allowed a thin crust of ice to form at the western edge of the lake. The delicate floes shift and move about, stacking up on each other, building ever changing patterns in the reflections of the sky. One day later, it's all different again.
Return to Winter 1999
Newsletter
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