This salty, shimmering body of water is set on the edge of the Great Basin with Yosemite in the western sky.
S ounds more like an apparition than a mere lake.
Three hundred species of birds, including at least 80 species of water birds, rely on Mono Lake's vital food source of tiny brine shrimp. Hikers, kayakers, bird watchers and photographers are drawn to the lake. T he blue expanse of Mono lake, with its black and white volcanic islands, occupies the bottom of the Mono Basin, a shallow, bathtub shaped depression cupped by the lofty Sierra Nevada on its west and rolling volcanic uplands on its north, east, and south. It lies at an elevation of 6,382 feet, over a mile below the Sierran peaks that spawn its tributary streams. Lining Mono's shores are fascinating tufa towers, deposits that form when underwater springs mix with the lake's alkaline waters .