Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve

Telephone
760-647-6331

Email address
monolake@parks.ca.gov

Location/Directions
Highway 395, 13 miles east of Yosemite National Park, near the town of Lee Vining, California.

 

The True Depth of Mono Lake

by Dave Marquart

 

 

2007 marked the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve. The Reserve’s 49,000 acres include approximately 4,000 acres of the lake’s 40-mile shoreline—encompassing alkali flats, meadows, wetlands, and renowned limestone tufa groves—as well as the bed and waters of the lake itself. Parts of the reserve receive large numbers of visitors, while more remote portions are seldom walked upon.

 

The unique beauty of Mono Lake and the basin in which it lies inspired both the California and United States governments to take steps to preserve them. The California Legislature recognized the irreplaceable uniqueness of the fragile tufa formations that were being exposed as the lake dropped, due to diversions of its tributary streams by the City of Los Angeles, and was inspired to create the Reserve. The State Public Resources Code affirms, “State reserves consist of areas embracing outstanding natural or scenic characteristics of statewide significance,” and entrusts the Reserve with the protection of “its native ecological associations, unique faunal or floral characteristics ... and scenic qualities.”

 

Two years after the creation of the State Reserve, the Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area was created, including approximately 76,700 acres surrounding Mono Lake and the State Reserve.

 

I could detail the successes of the first 25 years of the State Reserve, but I wish to highlight only one; what I consider to be the most important: We’ve never lost sight of our goal of maintaining its natural beauty and wildness.

 

About 250,000 people visit the Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve every year. It can be challenging to balance visitors’ recreational needs with the mission of a State Reserve. Reading visitor comments (yes, we do read them!) reveals a predominant theme that resonates with me. An example that highlights this theme: “Extremely peaceful; tranquil; serene; great place to meditate; soul-soothing.”

 

Why is it that so many of us feel so embraced by this place?

 

What exactly is it that nature does for us?

 

I see Mono Lake as a wise and powerful teacher for those willing to listen. For me, communing with Mono Lake and its silence allows me to more clearly realize who I am as a human being, what is important to me, and where my place is in this world.

 

A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.                                                                                      - Henry David Thoreau

 

The Mono Basin has been a stepping-stone for hundreds of state, federal, and Mono Lake Committee employees over the past three decades. I’ve encouraged them to make time for the lake, to find a secluded place around the shore to sit and just be with nature. I also request that they leave all distractions behind, including friends, MP3 players, and books (yes, even bird books and field guides). For many, this is not an easy assignment. Being alone with no distractions risks making us restless and uncomfortable and, for some, bored. But that glimpse of who we are without any props or distractions can be illuminating. Some say their experience has brought improved clarity and direction to their lives.

 

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.

                                                                                                          - Juvenal, Roman poet.

 

During stressful times we seek refuge in nature. Studies show that communing with nature does, in fact, reduce stress. People who are around nature, or even view images of nature, following a stressful event can recover more quickly than others. That explains the surge in visitors to state parks immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001. That fall, several lake visitors spoke to me of how much more important Mono Lake was to them at that particular time. A visit to Mono Lake may have reassured many that there are forces at work in the world that are much larger than the violence humans inflict upon each other.

 

Considering visitors often conduct their vacations the way they do their lives—hurriedly—even a brief visit to Mono Lake can do wonders for the soul. And the visitor registers show that many of you visit repeatedly: “We keep coming back; we love this place—we come here often; after all those years—still awesome” is another sampling. Just knowing it exists and is being protected—and will be there when you need it—is sometimes “soul-soothing” enough, at least temporarily.

 

“No words can describe,” writes another Mono Lake visitor. Some who try to interpret nature only with their minds may never feel that deep connection with the earth that some of us feel.

 

“Yes, the earth speaks, but only to those who can hear with their hearts. It speaks in a thousand, thousand small ways, but like our lovers and families and friends, it often sends its messages without words,”

                                                 - Steve Van Matre, author of Earth Magic

 

For some, nature can speak to us in a group. Others need stillness and solitude to receive her messages. “... breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space,” wrote wilderness advocate and environmental writer Edward Abbey. For some of us, solitude is the only way to introspection and connection with that mysterious part of us that patiently waits to be discovered.

 

We who work for land-managing agencies in the Mono Basin have an awesome and important job to protect the sense of wildness that provides opportunities for solitude and reflection. Lest we ever lose sight of that mission, we simply need to read another comment in the visitor register: “This place just makes me feel good.”

 

Dave Marquart has worked for the Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve for 25 years, most recently as Park Interpretive Specialist. He teaches birding by ear and connecting with nature workshops for the Sierra State Parks Foundation. If you've made a meaningful connection with Mono Lake and wish to share it with him, he can be reached at connectingwithnature@yahoo.com.