We started with the South Tufa area, which we read was the one place to go if you only had time for one stop. It’s more difficult to get to since it involves a few miles of (pretty good) gravel road but the tufa towers are much more interesting than at the locations closer to US395.
So cool. We saw lots of swallows, an osprey nest, and probably some grebes in the distance. Also someone with a drone that shouldn’t have been there.
Mono Lake is large, with the Sierra Nevada on one side and smaller foothills rimming the rest.
We also stopped at the (closed) visitor center, which had a nice elevated view, and a grassy county park. We had more views and saw some new wildflowers along the way. The visitor center was the starting point for some hikes, which we were not up for.
The county park wasn’t super interesting. It looked like a nice place for a picnic, and we saw some birds.
