Monday, July 25, 2016

Mono Lake and the Drought

We went down to the site of the Old Marina on Mono Lake near Lee Vining to see how five years of drought have effected the lake level

Easy to see that the lake level has fallen exposing more of the tufa formations.
A docent told us that he used to read the water depth on this gauge, now high and dry.
Turning around we could see what may be another effect of the drought, the results of the recent "Marina Fire".  It's hard to know how much drought may be contributing to fire in the west, fire is something we have always dealt with.  Drought and the extremely hot weather do not help.  
My hat goes off to the firefighters, I sure couldn't do that hard work in the heat.  
The fire burned all around this little lodge across from the lake.  It survived unscathed thanks to the fire crews but I'm sure that the owners were nervous.

Visit Our World Tuesday for more views of our wonderful world

4 comments:

carol l mckenna said...

Lovely photography ~ sad situation ~ we have indeed unbalanced Mother Nature ~

Wishing you a Happy Week ~ ^_^

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

I visited Mono Lake a few years ago and I can see from yuour photos that it has shrunk. Glad that building survived the fire. Hope the area gets good rainfall soon!

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

It has been years since we've been in that part of California -- the Lake was already shrinking then and I remember the signs and bumper stickers that said 'Save Mono Lake' .... but it is way dryer now I can see from your pictures.

The drought is terrible and frightening. It's even dry here in Western Oregon -- it used to stay green in the summer from all the winter rains, but now all the vacant lots and lots of yards and fields are dry. Though there were some rainy days in the winter there wasn't enough snow in the mountains. The same was true in Colorado.

Yogi♪♪♪ said...

Weather is getting more extreme all over. Here in Tornado alley we are getting wilder weather every year.