June Lake Loop: The Detour That Earns Itself

About two miles south of the Mono Lake turnoff, Highway Three Ninety Five passes a junction where a smaller road breaks west. That road is Highway One Fifty-Eight, and it rejoins Highway Three Ninety Five sixteen miles later. Most people stay on the main highway.

The sixteen-mile detour is worth taking.

Highway One Fifty-Eight, called the June Lake Loop, passes four lakes set below the eastern Sierra escarpment, each one at a slightly different angle to the granite above it. The road runs along the base of the Sierra wall with the Mono volcanic field visible to the east, which means you are between an eleven-thousand-foot fault scarp that is still being lifted by active seismics and a volcanic chain whose most recent eruption was approximately six hundred years ago. There is no other paved road in the Eastern Sierra where you can see both geological systems at once.

June Mountain, the ski area on the loop, was Dave McCoy's second ski operation, opened after Mammoth Mountain established itself. It has a different character: smaller, quieter, closer to the scale of what skiing looked like before it became an industry. Whether it is still operating when you read this is something you would want to check, as smaller mountains in the Sierra have faced difficult seasons. But the road around the loop runs regardless, and the lakes are there in every season.

The loop does not have the history that the rest of Highway Three Ninety Five carries. It is the part of this corridor that is almost entirely what it looks like: a road between some mountains and some water.

Sometimes that is enough.