Dawn on Mono Lake's Shoreline Tufa

Mono Lake is about as simple and stark as a mountain lake with a few rock formations can be. Although the Sierra Nevada sits just to the west, this is not your typical alpine setting. No happy cows munching grass, no winding road with beautiful vistas around every curve. Well, that's not quite accurate. I think this is a stunningly beautiful place, but it helps to have a thing for the simple, the quiet, the almost elegant interplay of still water and calcium carbonate rock that literally grows out of the water. I do. 

This is an image of one of the many shoreline tufa formations on the south shore. On this chilly January morning, there weren't many clouds in the sky, but the light was clean and warm, the water was still and a deep marine blue layered with rose and gold, and what sky there was glowed in the new light of day.