Day 5: Mono Lake

Alli: With day 4 consisting mostly of driving, day 5 would inevitably contain hiking. As fate would have it though, we only ended up doing two of the four hikes we had originally planned. Because of a spontaneously cracked windshield, and our car's inability to navigate sandy roads, we unfortunately found ourselves having to leave the early. However, the two hikes we did were certainly worth the trip. 

Our first hike was more an extended overlook. Following a short path out to the south shore of Mono Lake, we got to see the Tufas left behind from an extinct volcano that had once dominated the area. The structures looked really cool - like giant, pale termite towers. Maybe they secretly were, given how many bugs were flying around them…

The main attraction of this hike was definitely the Nautilus - a Tufa that was supposed to resemble the infamous ship of Captain Nemo. I didn't really see it, but hey, it was all still pretty neat.

Jessie: The second hike was called Black Point Fissures. This was a hike up a sand/ash hill (it looked and felt like a mountain) that had no official trail; we had to pick our own path, weaving in and out of thorny bushes. After making it about a third of the way up the hill my dad gave my sister and I a choice. Considering we didn't have any sunblock he gave us the option to go back to the car. Alli chose to take that deal but I was willing to finish the hike. I didn't know what I got myself into.

This hike was perhaps one of the most difficult hikes I've ever been on. The ash was particularly challenging, and it took so long to get to the top. More than once I told Dad that I was going back to the car and more than once he said, "Just to that rock, it'll take five minutes." He said this like 10 times. I'm pretty sure that I looked like a zombie walking up the hill. My arms quite literally were hanging limp, I was hunched over, and I didn't look happy. I must've been completely out of my mind as well because I remember wearing Dad's hat for protection from the sun! For those of you who don't know, his hat is weirdest looking hat I've ever seen, my sister and I have grown to dislike this hat very much. 

Eventually though we made it to the top and it was like Christmas. The fissures were shady, cool, and awesome. They were up to 75 feet deep and 2 feet wide at some points. We spent about half and hour in there scrambling up, down, and around rocks and boulders. Eventually we figured we should head back. We took a different path back to the car hiking along the top of the fissures. More than once we decided to jump the three foot gaps in the rock. We hiked down and met up with Alli, who was sleeping in the car. For the reasons listed above we had to cut our day short but at least the first half of the day was good, and filled with beautiful views.