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California, here you come: stroll San Francisco, sip Napa Valley wine, and hike Yosemite. here is your best-ever summer road trip

Sunset, May, 2004 by Lora J. Finnegan

Leaving the Tahoe Basin, we head south along and across the Carson River, crossing Luther Pass and aspen-crowded Monitor Pass on State 89. Cresting Conway Summit, we gaze down into Mono Lake, which from here looks like a plate of burnished metal reflecting the black, brooding Mono Craters and the sheer walls of the Sierra Nevada to the west.

Shallow, salty--2 1/2 times as salty as the ocean--and shadowed by eerie tufa formations, Mono is Northern California's second-most famous lake; where Tahoe's beauties are clear and obvious, Mono's are more mysterious. The key to understanding it is to explore on it and around it.

My sister overcomes her nerves ("Are you sure we won't tip over?"), and we sign on for a canoe trip led by a member of the Mono Lake Committee, a nonprofit organization that works to restore and protect the lake. Pushing off from the pebbly beach at Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area, we paddle across waters teeming with tiny brine shrimp. The lake reflects the white tufa towers rising into a cloud-flecked sky.

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"The tufa towers are awesome," our guide, Geoffrey McQuilkin, says, "but so is the role this lake plays in the ecosystem." He tells us that 80 percent of the state's California gulls nest here. Mono is also a stopover for 1.6 million grebes and 75,000 phalaropes. "See those tiny birds moving on the water by that tower?" he asks. We swing our binoculars around to watch a phalarope, a white bird no bigger than my hand, paddling in tight circles on the water. His efforts create a powerful vortex, which sucks his meal of brine shrimp to the surface.

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Glaciers and volcanoes shaped this landscape, and it still looks as if the fires just died out. We head off to hike to the rim of Panum Crater. The 1/4-mile trail to the top of this truncated volcano is steep and challenging, the sand sucking at our boots. But the view--of Mono Lake dotted with islands and towers and the gray cones of the Mono Craters marching southward--is worth it.

My sister and brother-in-law are suitably awestruck. Mary Kay says, "I've never seen anything like this. It totally blows me away."

That night, over dinner at the restored 1922 Mono Inn, we meet Sarah Adams, who has given new life to this restaurant. In the upstairs gallery, Adams shows us her grandfather's photographs--some of Ansel Adams's most iconic images of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada.

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Looking out over the lake, Adams says, "I think of Mono County as very wild--as California's last frontier." We watch as Mono Lake turns pewter; a thunderstorm rolls through, shooting lightning bolts across the sky. "You have a sense of space and openness here that my grandfather would have loved."

3 Days 315 Miles

To Yosemite and home

The next morning, we spot a hawk soaring in the same direction we're driving, following steep State 120 into Yosemite National Park. Coming in by the park's eastern "back door" early in the day, we avoid the backup of cars often found at the west-side entry kiosks. But in late spring or summer, you have to face one reality: Yosemite will be crowded (3.5 million people visit the park each year).