The Tufa formations at Mono Lake look even more other-wordly in the snow. After many years of litigation, Los Angeles County has been forced to mitigate some of the damage that was caused by a century of sucking dry the valleys on the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. The water level of Mono lake has to be restored to what it was some 80 years ago. In a decade from now, most of these tuffas will be under water once more.