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As the saline lake retreated, rock formations called tufa, which had formed underwater, were left exposed along the shorelines.

Mono is a million years old, one of North America’s oldest lakes, a sci-fi landscape of calcium carbonate tufa towers, more than twice as salty as the sea itself, and eerie-looking empty or full.

The lake and its surroundings were protected as parkland in large part to preserve the lake’s tufa towers — knobby limestone spires that rise high above the water’s surface and make for a wonderfully Seussian sight.

“Several horses died at South Tufa over the winter and their scavenged carcasses were draped between tufa towers and along the lakeshore.”

But today, just to stand beside the small tufa niche where a Jewish child was laid to rest 2,000 years ago feels like a kind of prayer.