Starting today you can make your summer canoe tour reservations on Mono Lake online. Simply click on the blue “Canoe Mono Lake” button on the home page and it will take you to the main canoeing page, where you click on the orange “Canoe tours” button. Once you’re there click on the date and time you want and you’re on your way to a great Mono Lake adventure.

Canoe tours begin on June 25th and run each Saturday and Sunday throughout the season until September 4th. (more…)

With a break in the windy and rainy weather, work continues on the Mono Lake Committee’s storefront! Logan Parsons has finished painting the logo and lettering above the canopy, and new lights have been installed in the alcove above the front door. Three more lights will go along the arch at the top of the building to illuminate the sign soon.

Logan Parsons tapes stencils to the front of the Committee bookstore.

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Tioga overlook parking lot, Memorial Day 2011.

It was a cold and blustery Memorial Day at Tioga Pass, but that didn’t stop adventure- and photo-seekers from filling the Saddlebag Lake Road and Tioga overlook parking areas. About two inches of new snow sat on top of the older snowpack, with deeper drifts in places. Evidence of numerous recent wet avalanches was visible as cornices failed under the intense late-May sun. Gaylor Bowl was (more…)

As of Saturday, May 7, Caltrans had plowed as far as Tioga Lake, a little over a mile from the Yosemite National Park entrance at Tioga Pass. Highway 120 remained closed at the winter closure gate four miles from Highway 395. Even the cleared portion of the roadway still had areas that were narrow and need additional snow clearing. From the west, you can track the National Park crew’s progress here.

On Saturday May 7th, a small crew was working on widening the cleared area just above the green bridge. Note the waterfall on the left indicating that Ellery Lake is spilling.

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On April 19, 2011, the Lee Vining WebCam moved from its long-time home looking out the attic vent above the Committee’s front door to the top of the roof, about two feet below the anemometer. The vent will be closed as part of the remodeling of the front of the building, which will begin this week (watch for a Mono-logue post about that coming soon).

In its former location, the WebCam captured (more…)

American White Pelicans over Mono Lake. Photo by Tom Piekunka.

In March and April the brine shrimp are too small and alkali flies are scarce. Mono Lake does not get a lot of attention from birds on their spring migration, especially piscivores. But the birds do pass by as they wing north along the Pacific Flyway. Recently a large flock of American White Pelicans transited the Mono Basin. It’s a rare and spectacular sight to see these massive birds soaring overhead. Tom Piekunka snapped this beautiful image of American White Pelicans circling over the eastern portion of Mono Lake. With a steady hand and 400mm lens Tom was able to capture the nuptial tubercles located on the upper bills, a feature that adult pelicans grow each year as the breeding season approaches.

The Mono Lake Committee building buried under new snow.

Today is the first day of spring. You wouldn’t know it to look around Lee Vining, where a swift winter storm dumped over 18 inches of snow between the hours of 10:00pm and 9:00am. When I tried to leave my house this morning I was briefly stymied by the thigh-high drifts piled against my door—I have a broken right arm and wasn’t sure I’d be able to shovel myself out one-handed. Luckily I devised a system of using my cast as a fulcrum against the shovel’s handle, a trick that came in handy when I arrived at work and had to shovel my way in.

Those of you who have visited us know that (more…)

Snow-covered hills above Highway 395.

As a Mono Lake Committee Project Specialist, my duties are many and varied. From working in the Information Center & Bookstore to drafting grant proposals to pulling invasive weeds, I never seem to be doing the same thing for more than a few hours at a time, and each new project is an exciting surprise.

Last week our communications team gave me an interesting assignment. Every issue of the Mono Lake Newsletter features a “benchmark”—a pair of photos, one old, one current, showing a before-and-after snapshot of a particular site in the Mono Basin. This time we had the “before” photo, a shot taken by Burton Frasher in 1938. But the “after” photo (more…)

Mono Lake's endemic brine shrimp (Artemia monica).

A few days ago I cross-country skied out to the shoreline to measure Mono Lake’s exact height above sea level, now 6381.99 feet. I knelt down at the water’s edge to admire the still green water, and could hardly believe my eyes.  First one tiny hatchling, then another, then five more full-size brine shrimp sculling in circles on their backs—I counted over twenty in all. (more…)

There are only three spaces still available in the Winter Photography Field Seminar … snap them up now before someone else does!

A space in the seminar would make a wonderful gift for any photographer this holiday season. Winter at Mono Lake is like nowhere else on earth, and it offers many unique photographic opportunities. With instructor Rick Knepp, a veteran of Mono Basin winters, you’ll have the perfect guide. Sign up now!