Conway Summit to Lee Vining

27 June 2010

Today we rode from Bridgeport to Lee Vining. The distance was only about 27 miles. We had one serious climb, about 1700 feet. The real work started about 6 miles south of Bridgeport and the grade continued for about seven miles until we reached the Conway Summit (8138 feet). All along this portion of the ride, we had delightful views of the snow-clad Sierra to the west.



The shot above illustrates the riding conditions along 395. Wide open spaces, decent shoulder, moderately heavy traffic including many motor homes and tractor-trailer rigs.



The views to the west were consistently nice for this first half of the ride, as seen in the shot above.



As the descent begins from Conway Summit, the road bends to the east to an overlook of Mono Basin and Mono Lake.



We stopped at a county park along the northwest corner of the lake and walked on a pretty boardwalk past a watercolor artist and through stranded tufa columns to a vantage point near the shore from which we had nice views of the shorebirds.



Mono Lake is a curious place. It has no water outlets, only evaporation. So, over time, it has become highly alkaline, with mineral content about 3x as much as the ocean. Brine shrimp and a peculiar black fly that can walk underwater grow in abundance. Many birds use islands on the lake as nesting areas (sea gulls) or use the lake as a resting and refueling station during long north-to-south migrations. Los Angeles began diverting fresh water streams that feed Mono Lake in the 1940s, which caused the lake level to drop dramatically, revealing many tufa columns, which formed when calcium-rich freshwater springs beneath the lake's surface mixed with carbonate-rich lake water. Over the decades, the lake also became much more alkaline. To protect the ecosystem, the withdrawal of freshwater from streams that feed Mono Lake has been substantially curtailed. The lake level is slowly recovering to a compromise target level of 6392 feet (above sea level) that is well below the pre 1940 value (6417 feet) but higher than the mid 1990s low point (6385 feet). The shoreline is shallowly sloped, so even a few feet of elevation change makes a big difference in the lake surface area.



Lee Vining is just a few miles beyond Mono Lake. After arriving at the motel and showering, Ingrid and I followed a pleasant nature trail along the Lee Vining Creek back to the Mono Lake visitor center. Tomorrow, we tackle the Tioga Road up to Tioga Pass, a climb of 3200 feet to almost 10,000 feet in elevation.