Mono Lake - An ancient inland sea, Mono Lake favors the modern visitor with expansive vistas, spectacular tufa towers spiraling above the water (shown here), abundant wildlife, and more than 700,000 years of geological history. Mono Lake has no outlet and over time, with the evaporation of the fresh water, salts and minerals have become so concentrated that fish cannot live in it. But, brine shrimp and flies thrive and provide food for millions of migratory birds and waterfowl - in the past, food for humans as well. Groups of Great Basin Native Americans are often named after one of their important ethnic foods. The group in Mono Basin is known as the Kuzedika Paiute, the "brine fly pupae eaters." In August, look for broad windrows of these larvae and pupae along Mono Lake's shoreline. This salty food was a delicacy much demanded by tribes with whom the Kuzedika traded.

Bloody Pass - A prehistoric trade route connecting Eastern and Western Sierra Native American groups traversed through Bloody Pass (called Mono Pass, today) from Mono Lake to Yosemite Valley. The Kuzedika Paiute traded many commodities with their western Sierra neighbors; among the more unusual was the Pandora moth larva, Piagi. Mining prospectors using the trail in the 1840s and 1850s called it "Bloody" Pass because the jagged granite slashed pack animals' legs. A glacial moraine at the mouth of Bloody Canyon offers testament to its geological past.