Just east of the Sierra Nevada range, near the small tourist town of Lee Vining, Calif., is one of the most unusual bodies of water you’ll ever visit. Mono Lake is one of the oldest in North America ...

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At a trailhead surrounded by sagebrush, a naturalist welcomes a group of visitors to Mono Lake beside a sign that reads “Oasis in the Desert.” Guide Ryan Garrett, his face alight, greets the group of ...

Like many Bay Area residents, I’ve spent plenty of time on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. But my husband and I recently took the plunge behind the “Granite Curtain,” dropping five miles and ...

Mono Lake is just east of the Sierra Nevada Range near the small town of Lee Vining, California, the eastern gateway to Yosemite National Park. Seeing it is a uniquely Western experience, and summer ...

The canoe glided in the salty water of Mono Lake and floated through an otherworldly landscape of towering tufa outcroppings that look like castles made out of dripping mud. The water was clouded by ...

Many of the big saline lakes of the Americas are on the brink of collapse due to climate change and water diversions. Mono lake’s survival is due to the scientists, activists, and locals who have ...

On a walking tour at Mono Lake, visitors get a stark introduction to 80-plus years of Los Angeles’ water use. Interpretive signs stand among exposed tufa towers. They trace the lake’s decline, showing ...

Ryan Garrett, education director for the Mono Lake Committee, uses a nine-foot pole to show where the water level is supposed to be to protect the lake's health. At a trailhead surrounded by sagebrush ...