This post was written by Julia Runcie, 2010 Project Specialist.
Last night at around 8:00pm the blustery winds of our first big winter storm gave way to a peaceful evening lit by a full moon. Though at first we were daunted by the prospect of digging my car out of eight inches of snow, OE Instructor Rosa and I decided we had to take advantage of the clearing weather and the fresh powder.
We drove very slowly and carefully down Highway 395 to Highway 120 east, where snow had blown a few inches deep across the highway. After another few miles we came to the Panum Crater turnoff and my car decided it was unwilling to go any further down an unplowed dirt road. We pulled over and got out our cross-country skis.
The sky was mostly overcast, but occasionally the moon would sail out from under the clouds and hit us like a spotlight. It was almost eerily quiet. Panum Crater loomed ahead of us, and below it a narrow slice of Mono Lake curved into view. We could see a faint orange glow from Lee Vining and the blinking taillights of snow plows on the highway, but beyond those few signs of civilization we could have been alone in a trackless wilderness.
At the base of the crater we paused for a long moment, enjoying the sensation of having skied into the middle of a black-and-white photograph. Then we turned back to the car, our breath misting the cold air. Winter, it seemed, had finally arrived in the Mono Basin.