Black Point Fissures
Black Point fissure
While searching for slot canyons in northern Nevada, I was both pleased and surprised to discover that Mono Lake had a fissure resembling a slot canyon! Until that point, I had only considered Mono Lake for it’s Tufa and for being sought after by photographers for having low light pollution. Given that the lake sits next to HWY 395, we’ve made several visits and have driven past the lake many times either on the way to Yosemite or southern California, completely unaware of the Black Point Fissures.
Finding the Black Point Fissures at Mono Lake can definitely be an adventure. After turning off the highway and making the 6 mile drive on dirt roads to the Black Point parking lot, it’s a roughly 3/4 mile trek over unmarked terrain to the entrance to the fissure, though finding the entrance can be challenging. We walked perhaps a quarter mile past the entrance before resorting to GPS, and even then I’d say the entrance is easy to miss.
We will definitely be making another visit, as the snowy conditions did not provide the safest conditions. We made it about 1/3 of the way through when we climbing what appeared to be a mound of snow, before realizing the snow was covering a pile of rocks, threatening to give way at any moment. I suspect the best time to visit would be in the spring after any snow had melted, or in the fall before the first snowfall; with all the black sand around the area and an absence any shade, the hike to the fissure could be uncomfortably hot in the summer.
Below are several photos from our trip, and a map to the Black Point parking lot.
