tbi Condor 
A MAGAZINE OF WESTERN ORNITHOLOGY 
Bi-Monthly Bulletin of the Cooper Ornithological Club 
Vol. 4. No. I. Santa Clara, Cal., January-February, 1902. “ $ 1.00 a Year 
A Trip to Mono Lake, Ornithological and Otherwise. 
WALTER K. FISHER. 
T here are several ways of reaching Mono Lake, but for ruggedbeauty I be- 
lieve none can equal the old Mono Trail, which leads up through the Pass 
and down Bloody Canyon. Just where this trail originally started is not at 
present evident. One can strike it from the old Tioga road in the upper Tuo- 
lumne meadows. After leaving these broad flower-strewn stretches the trail 
dashes up some rocky slopes plentifully covered with sturdy lodge-pole pines and 
gray erratic boulders. These rocks vary in size and have a curious new look as 
if the glacier had run off and left them only a year or so ago. Much of the ex- 
posed rock still retains that polish, or sheen so characteristic of the glaciated areas 
of the high Sierras. After passing through several little meadows the trail finally 
works into a broad sulcus between Kuna Crest on the right and Mts. Dana and 
Gibbs on the left, when it strikes a southeasterly direction and followSrthe vallej'^ 
in a bee-line for the divide, at Mono Pass. Although the Belding spermophile 
has from time to time whistled in the little meadows, and the alpine chipmunk 
frisked about in sun-patches over rocks or among fallen trees, the scarcity of mov- 
ing life is at once evident. It is now the first of September and perhaps the days 
have become a trifle cool. Along sunny edges of meadows, robins. Sierra j uncos, 
Audubon warblers, mountain chickadees and creepers are feeding energetically, 
but the cooler parts of meadows and woods are almost deserted by birds, except 
perhaps for the occasional tap of a woodpecker or the flash of a passing flicker’s 
wing. Among the dwarf gray-green willows that border small streams white- 
crowned sparrows are quietly attentive to passing events, and a seductive squeak 
may possibly induce a pileolated warbler to forsake its shelter and take a momen- 
tary swing on some low-bending Orthocarpus stalk. 
The long meadow that occupies tlie hollow leading to Mono Pass rises very 
gradually, and a small stream runs down it toward the Tuolumne, from out the 
very throat of the pass itself. Here at the divide, 10599 feet above the ocean, is 
a little roundish pond that discharges its waters east and west — west into the 
Pacific and east into Mono Lake. The pass itself is the windiest place under 
heaven. Stunted and weather beaten, the white-barked pines stand on the very 
rim of the ridge, their branches painfully distorted. All the Clarke crows appear 
to go through this pass in great haste. When they attempt to fly westward 
against the wind they are sometimes obliged to tack, and I noted one lazy fellow 
who gave it up in disgust and turned tail, all his feathers trying to outstrip him 
in the race. 
The gentler grades of the west slope all end at the summit. Appearances seem 
