Into the Narrows: The Rock Fissures of Black Point

Date: April 9, 2021

Place: Black Point at Mono Lake, Lee Vining, California

Coordinates:  38.028010,-119.084704

Length: 3 miles

Level: moderate

 

At the tail of our spring break in the canyons of Utah we returned to California by route 395 and the Eastern Sierra with the goal of checking out a few places on my constantly updating 'must see' list. On of these places was the Black Point butte on the north shore of Mono Lake. Usually we visit the South Tufa area where the spectacular rock formations are and the chance of observing interesting desert birds and other wildlife. Once we did go to see the North Tufa Mono Lake Park, which was nice, but we haven't done much exploration of any other part of the Mono Lake area. 

Black Point came on my list after a visit from a friend and her family. They did a big road trip around California. I helped them plan their trip and they added to it a great deal of their on sightseeing and exploration. When they returned from their travel they shared their own findings with me, and Black Point was one of their discoveries which immediately inspired me.

After our little exploration of Hot Creek we drove to the little parking area of Black Point. The road there becomes a sandy single lane dirt path at northeastern edge of Lee Vining, a short distance past the North Shore County Park. The path goes around the north side of Black point, then curves south and ends in a tiny parking space east of the butte. There was one care already parked there. We parked near it and stepped out to a gorgeous and outlandish scenery. 

According the the description I got from my friend and the accounts of other hikers that I later read online I knew not to expect any established trail. Indeed, there wasn't any. The features that I was specifically interested in were volcanic fissures, and the instructions of finding them were simply to get to the top of the hill and look for them west of the summit. 

Our hike as captured by my GPS

There were numerous tracks of human footprints ascending directly uphill. We chose that which looked most direct and followed it. 

The slope wasn't all that steep but going up was more physically demanding than it appeared. Going up the soft cinders felt like hiking up a sand dune. I paused every now and then to look at the view which opened up with each step I took uphill. 

Mono Lake view southwest to the Sierra Nevada 

A flat salt-crusted island was visible close to the north shore. There must have been quite a wind there because a dust devil was dancing on the salt flat. 

Little lizards were sunning between the shrubs and scurried away as we past them. They were numerous, and also very quick to run and hide.

Black Point is one of those hills that whenever you think you see the peak and you get near it, it turns out that there's another would-be peak a bit higher. We encountered a few of those on the way up but eventually we did see the real peak before us, and we headed there. 

Once we got to the rocky part of the hill the climbing became much easier. on the other hand, because there was no trail we needed to find the best way to get to the peak on our own. We had different opinions on the matter so we ended up splitting, each of us ascending by a different route. 

View northeast

The first one up was the elder chika, my mountain young goat. I came up second, far behind her. Pappa Quail lingered behind to stay with the younger chika who took her time getting up the hill.

The view from the peak was fantastic. What surprised me was how high I felt on the peak of that relatively small butte looking at the majestic eastern peaks of the Sierra Nevada range. 

The volcanic nature of the hill was evident everywhere. I liked the nuggets of what looked like granite embedded in the volcanic ash rock. 

Standing on the peak of Black Point I looked around for the fissures. There was a big dark line to the west that looked like it could be that. I called my family and we climbed down from the peak and headed west to that dark line where it looked like the ground had opened up. 

The Fissure

It wasn't a straight-forward walk to that dark line we saw from the peak, but when we arrived there we saw that indeed that was a large fissure in the volcanic rock. 

Fissure

We approached the fissure where it was shallow and the walls were collapsed at several points so it was easy to go down and take an inside look.

There was a dark lizard on the wall. I photographed it, but Pappa Quail and the elder chika both got better photos than me. And they didn't even get down the fissure. 

Northwestern Fence Lizard

The fissure got deeper and I tried going down directly but my way was blocked by a large boulder. There was a steep drop on the other side and I didn't want to risk trying to descend there so I climbed back up above the fissure line. 

It didn't surprise me that Pappa Quail wished to stay up but I expected my chikas to show more enthusiasm about these cool geological formations. Apparently they were too tired and didn't feel like going down the fissures. In fact, they kept asking when will we get back to the car already. I told them they could go down already, but Pappa Quail convinced them to stick with us until I was dome exploring. I didn't argue, I simply dropped down the big fissure at the first passable entry point. 

The dirty white bottom I saw from above turned out to be old snow. I was excited to see the leftover snow so late in the season. It showed that the inside of the fissure was keeping the cool temperatures much longer than the surrounding area. I had to watch my step though. Although old, the snow was still slippery. 

I moved further into the fissure, not worrying about how I'll get back up. I figured I could always backtrack and exit the way I entered. As I moved forward the fissure got deeper and narrower, it's walls closing in on me. 

It was getting late in the afternoon but there was plenty of sunshine outside. Inside the depth of the fissure it was fairly dark, however, and only a narrow stripe of bright sky was visible above my head. 

Looking up

One of the strange things that I saw inside the fissure was the stucco-like partial coating of the fissure walls. It looked human-made, but was completely natural. 

I inspected this 'stucco' closely. Later I asked about t at the California Geology Forum page and was told that this was tufa, a calcite deposit that precipitates when calcite-rich water evaporates. That implies that Black Point fissures were once below the surface of Mono Lake. 

From a side view it did look like something that was added on the pre-existing fissure walls. 

Pappa Quail called me from above. The chikas were really eager to get off the hill. I started looking for a way out. There were plenty of dead-end corners in the fissure, but soon I came upon another collapsed area where I could climb up and exit the fissure with little effort. . 

Looking along the fissure from above I could see that I would have needed to get out soon enough anyway because it became to narrow for me to walk though. It did seem to get wider later on but my family were already turning to walk down the hill. 

We didn't go back to the summit of Black Point but circumvented around it in the general direction of the parking area. 

Going down was much quicker, naturally. The difficult part was finding a less thorny route between the desert shrubs. 

Soon I was at the lead - not a normal place for me. Perhaps it was the lack of wildflowers, or that Pappa Quail and the elder chika actually encountered birds on their way downhill. 

Brewer's Sparrow

There weren't that many birds there, but enough to make my two birders pleased, and the elder chika glad that we did go there after all. 

Northern Harrier

Even I saw some of the birds but I trusted my family borders with their big zoom lenses to capture the photos. 

Rock Wren

I came down the hill facing east where the peaks were low volcanic buttes devoid of snow. Mono Lake to the south was belted with a wide salt band at its north shore. I felt compelled to go down to the water but I didn't think that Pappa Quail and the chikas would want to remain in the area any longer. 

Mono Lake

Earlier that day the plastic gravel protector at the bottom of our car came loose and was dragging on the dirt road. Pappa Quail showed his MacGyver skills and tied the thing with a piece of wire we found on the ground where it happened. Now however, he wanted to secure it better. When we got back to the car he pulled his multitool and slid under the car. He said he didn't need my help so I announced that I was going down to the waterline and invited the girls to join me. The young chika grabbed her book and sat down in the sand near the car, making her statement. The elder chika perked up when I mentioned that there should be birds in the water. 

We walked down   a wide belt of mostly dry vegetation, stepping on a narrow path that previous visitors had etched in the land. 

Between the dry grass belt and the was another wide belt of black volcanic cinders, contrasting beautifully with the white of the salt sediments and the blue water. What astonished me though, were the many dead plants, all of one species, that stood at the cinder belt like outworldly ghosts. I asked about these later at the California Native Plants Society page, and learned that these were giant blazing star, a common annual wildflower. Their bloom season would be later in the summer, but it was early April and these were all dead and I didn't see any new germination. 

A Blazing Star Cemetery

 

 I inspected them closely. The dry casings of once lovely green plants with big yellow flowers. The blazing star is an annual plant, but these looked like their lives were sucked out in an instant, living the empty dry body behind them like an old molt cast aside by a dragonfly nymph turned adult.

Giant Blazing Star, Mentzelia laevicaulis 

 

When we approached the salt belt it no longer appeared as a uniform salt field but showed much texture of sediment varying in size and shades of white, off-white, and gray. The contrast with the black sand and the blue water was striking.

As the water sources to Mono Lake are still being diverted by the city of Los Angeles, and after this year's drought, there was quite a lot of freshly exposed sediments near the waterline, the smallest of which looked like popcorn.

The elder chika went directly to the water in search of birds. I got distracted by the hoards of brine flies that sat right at the edge of the water. They moved in waves as I stepped near, and settled down a couple of yards away.

Brine Flies

Gentle waves rippled the water, diffracting around the tufa deposits that poked through the surface. The calm movement and the near complete silence permeated my soul.

There were only a few birds in the water, all of them grebes, and none of them very close. They were in breeding plumage and swam about in pairs. The elder chika took a few photos and said she wanted to go back to the car.

Eared Grebe, breeding

I took a long goodbye look at the waterline, this time to the west where the remains of Sierra Nevada snow shone white in imitation of the brilliant white salt deposits on the lake shore. This place was truly magical.

On our way back to the car I noticed something I didn't see on our way to the water - there were numerous anthills dug in the crusted sand. The anthills looked freshly dug, but no ant was visible outside them. I assume they are of a nocturnal species. I also wondered what do they eat. Perhaps dead brine flies?

Anthills

We got back to the car. Pappa Quail was still underneath it so we dawdled around a bit more until he finished securing the gravel protector to the body of the car. The sun was getting low and the chikas were hungry. We got into the car and drove back to Lee Vining where Pappa Quail convinced the chikas to stop for a short visit of the North Tufa Park to see if there any birds there. The sun was down when we finally arrived in town where found only one eating place open for business, and even there we arrived almost before closing time.

Many thanks to the members of the California Geology Forum for the information about Black Point.

Many thanks also to the members of the California Native Plants Society for their help in identifying the blazing Star.

A post edit: upon reading this post Pappa Quail commented that I forgot to mention that the wire we found didn't quite work to fix the gravel protector so I had to sacrifice the low E string of my guitar, and that did do the job. 

 

Never miss an opportunity to visit Mono Lake. Seriously.