Mono Lake Mono Lake Mono Lake is located just off Highway 395 east of Yosemite National Park. Access to 395 from the park is easiest via Highway 120 over the Tioga Pass. A reminder though, the Tioga Pass is closed during the winter and at least part of the spring. Mono Lake is most unique. Fed by huge glaciers back during the last Ice Age, Mono Lake was 60 times larger than the 66 square miles it covers today.
Mono Lake is naturally salty and alkaline because it has no outlet.
The only way water leaves is via evaporation. The Sierra streams that flow into Mono contain only trace amounts of minerals and salts but those minerals and salts stay and their concentrations, over the years, multiply. The City of Los Angeles, hundreds of miles to the south, has been diverting water from the Mono Basin since 1941. That diversion has cut the lake volume in half and has doubled its alkalinity and salinity. Mono Lake is a geologist's paradise.