Otherworldly Scene Never Loses Its Allure

To some they resemble melted wax towers. To others they look like sandcastles, or slabs of coral reef. From some angles they could even be futuristic city skylines, or pieces of modern art, or -- perish the thought -- hulking mounds of guano.

Whatever they might suggest, the strange tufa formations of Mono Lake are one of California’s most irresistible sights for photographers. Dennis Flaherty has made hundreds of trips and shot thousands of frames. Next summer, he plans to teach a weeklong photo workshop -- one of the many that convene here -- in which students will camp overnight to capture the vivid sunsets and dawns.

“Photographers come from all over the world to photograph Mono Lake,” said Flaherty, 48, whose work has appeared on calendars and posters and in National Geographic magazine. “It really is a magical place. Sometimes it reminds me of being on the moon -- except for the water, of course.”

The lake, on the east edge of the Sierra Nevada, is thought to be one of the oldest in North America, the vestige of a once-vast inland sea. It is part of a volcanic wilderness bordering Yosemite National Park, south of Lake Tahoe on U.S. 395.

The tufa formations are created by calcium-rich springs spurting up from the lake bottom. The calcium bonds to carbonates in the water, resulting in calcium carbonate, a type of limestone. The craggy, earth-toned spires are but one of the features that lend Mono Lake an otherworldly appearance.

Mountain ridges rim the lake, but they are sufficiently far away to suggest a feeling of tremendous openness and desolation. The shallow bowl that contains the lake is a treeless expanse of low brush: pale green, brown, white in places.

Wind and high clouds move unhindered across the landscape. The lake reflects the colors of the sky, changing by the hour. It can be icy blue or gray, various shades of red and orange, even brilliant purple.

Don Jackson photographs Western wildlife and landscapes for a living and regularly makes the seven-hour drive from his home near Santa Rosa. He first saw the lake 17 years ago, during a trip to Yosemite.

“I said, ‘Wow, this is bizarre,’ ” recalled Jackson, 50. He likes to kayak and camp on the lake’s two islands, and said his favorite times to photograph are “those magical moments before sunrise. The light is so beautiful there. I love it in all seasons.

“I’ve been there in dead of winter, when it was almost down to zero [degrees]. I’ve had my cameras covered in ice, been through brutal storms. They get up to 6-foot waves on that lake. You’ve got to have your wits about you.”

Mono Lake is an oddity in other ways too. It is nearly three times as salty as the Pacific Ocean. Not a single fish lives here, but the water teems with brine shrimp scarcely half an inch long -- an estimated 4 trillion of them. The lake is also a nesting ground for 50,000 California seagulls, which migrate about 200 miles -- crossing the Sierra Nevada en route -- to lay eggs.

Painting the water’s edge is a shimmering line made up of millions of black brine flies. They provided sustenance to the early Paiute Indians, who fed on fly larvae collected from the lake in tightly woven baskets. Mark Twain visited in 1872 and marveled at the swath of flies, an inch deep and 6 feet wide, extending “clear around the lake--a belt of flies 100 miles long,” he wrote.

The waters are so alkali, Twain said, “that if you only dip the most hopelessly soiled garment into them once or twice and wring it out, it will be found as clean as if it had been through the ablest of washerwomen’s hands.”

In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began to tap the lake’s watershed. In the ensuing years, the level of the lake fell more than 40 feet, touching off one of California’s most heated and protracted environmental battles. “Save Mono Lake!” urged activists who united to form the Mono Lake Committee. Their campaign resulted in a milestone victory eight years ago, when the California State Water Resources Control Board issued an order to save the lake. The water has risen about a foot a year since that action. But, ironically, the city’s past exploitation has produced a wonder more stunning than ever. As photographer Warren Marr noted, fantastic tufa formations are now visible that otherwise would require a submersible to see.

“To have those sticking out of the water makes such an incredibly unique [scene],” he said. “You can find tufa formations in other places -- south of Trona, for example -- but they have no water around them, and they have no sense of mystery or power.”

A narrow boardwalk leads to one of the most extensive tufa areas on the lake’s south shore. A mile-long, self-guided tour winds past clusters of formations in the water and on dry land. A sign next to one outcropping of gray spikes, mottled with brown, notes that receding water exposed the formation in 1963. Towering 20 feet above a low sea of brush, it looks like the mud nests of giant wasps.

Not far away, Keith McNeely, 43, a visitor from the San Diego area, inspected a tufa cluster at the shoreline. “It reminds me of what you’d see in a cave: stalagmites,” he said.

His teenage son, Phillip, found it hard to believe that fly larvae were once used for food.

“Yummy,” he said, making a face.

“Mind boggling,” agreed Naomi Schechter, 58, visiting from New York City. “But you work with what you have.”

She smiled, looking around -- at the tufa, the backdrop of mountains, at what she called the grand Western sky. “The colors are really pure. It’s hard to find this kind of big sky in the East. These formations and the big sky ... it’s a unique environment ... very magical. My mind is blown.”

To see video online,

go to www.latimes.com/surroundings.