A full moon canoe tour on Mono Lake should be on your bucket list. There’s nothing like it. With the cool salty air off the water, the moonglade, the tufa towers even more otherworldly, birds and bats skirting through the quiet open sky—it’s like floating in the middle of a giant unbelievable black and white photograph.
While you’ve got your bucket list out, I recommend turning to page 14 of this Newsletter. The full moon canoe tour is just the beginning—the Mono Lake Committee is offering a whole slew of new guided trips and tours in addition to our regular offerings. We’ve pulled together some of the most knowledgeable, experienced, and fun people around to guide folks who are curious and want to see, learn, and do more in the Mono Basin.
In fact, in the process of putting the tours together we figured out that our staff has well over 100 years of experience in the Mono Basin, which is pretty fun to think about. So, it’s true, there is way more than a lifetime’s worth of things to learn about here. Turn the page to dive in—gulls, coyotes, fish, and Osprey are a good place to start.
But there’s nothing like being at the lake. Nothing.
My partner Gabriel and I recently welcomed a baby into this world (see page 26). It’s a little early for a full moon canoe tour with her but one of the things we can do is take benchmark photos down at the lake. Right now the lake is hovering around levels not seen since 1995, and while this is deeply concerning (see page 3), we take some solace in the protections in place and the Committee’s 16,000 members helping us keep a watchful eye on the situation to help mitigate the blow of the drought.
And someday we’ll take Illia out on a full moon canoe tour and be able to say, “See that tufa tower way down under the water? We have a photo of you sitting way down there.”
We can’t wait. And you shouldn’t either.
Sounds like a wonderful experience! Hope you can draw a lot of
people to Mono Lake.
Janis
Thank you Janis! Hope to see you out there!
— Arya
We’re checking full moon dates for summer and will load kayaks for the moon show. Thanks for the bucket list tip!!
We don’t canoe but would love to go with someone who does, is there a tour with guide in the canoe?
Hey Patti! Yes! We just started offering them this year. All of the tours are listed here: https://www.monolake.org/trips/tripcalendar — just scroll on down to August and you’ll see it listed! There’s also one in September.
I hope you can get out there for it!
Arya
Patti,
Typically there is a guide in the canoe with you. They handle the steering and most of the paddling. If someone can help paddle at the front of the canoe that helps a lot, but no experience necessary.
For more information, please feel free to give us a call or email.
– Robbie@monolake.org