HETCH HETCHY, YOSEMITE
I was always
like, “Yeah, Hetch Hetchy—the place where the water in SF comes from.” But I’d
never been there, until this summer.
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| Hetch Hetchy Reservoir |
It’s incredible.
I expected the quintessential Yosemite, a mashup of nature and mankind, and in
a way Hetch Hetchy is, but walking along it’s northern shore was sublime, the
kind of feeling that is almost religious, which says a lot for this atheist city
slicker. Instead of humans all over the place, there were hundreds of teal
colored butterflies, alpine blues, yellow and black swallowtails, and orange
butterflies flickering over the rivulets moving down the granite walls of the
valley and into the reservoir, a space so blue and flat and pristine, you
almost start to plan a secret skinny dipping event for the next full moon. ;-)
There are three great possible hikes from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, destinations
being the dam itself, Wapama Falls, or Rancheria Falls.
THE TODDLER’S
HIKE-- O'Shaughnessy Dam
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| On the trail |
The walk along
the top of the dam gives you a feeling of being on the wall of some American
castle, and at the far end is a tunnel that a toddler would love to walk
through. The dam is an undeniable engineering feat, constructed from 1915 to
1922, and happens to be in a setting so beautiful that John Muir fought tooth
and nail to keep it from being built. The view is dazzling, as is the fact that
Hetch Hetchy's water travels 167 miles more or less downhill by gravity, and
serves more than 2.4 million people with clean drinking water. The tunnel at
the far end, where dam meets the valley way, was dynamited out of the rock and
it has the feeling of gnomes and magic, dripping with moisture and cooled by
wind blowing through it. If you have rain boots for the toddler, bring 'em for
stomping in puddles.
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| Wapama Falls |
THE BIG KID’S
HIKE--Wapama Falls (3 miles r/t)
The three-mile
round-trip walk from the dam to Wapama Falls is plenty for kids, and you’ll
need to bring water, snacks, and a hat with an extra wide brim. (In fact, I was
fortunate to have a newborn blanket on me, pinned to my hat to keep sun off my
shoulders). The trail winds up and down the valley’s edge on a trail that faces
the sunny south, but the shade of oaks and bay laurels keeps you cool in
moments, and otherwise you smell the aromatic sage, yerba santa, and the scent
of hot granite in the sun.
THE HIKER’S HIKE--Rancheria Falls (9 miles r/t)
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| En route to Rancheria Falls |
The round-trip
hike to Rancheria Falls is 9 miles (5.4 one-way from the dam), an all-day trip
that eluded even my husband and I. We almost made it, maybe halfway where we
came to green meadow with purple flowers and ponderosa pines, the wind warm,
the place magical. Some people we passed were going to camp there; they had the
right idea.
GETTING THERE
It’s about three
and a half hours drive to Hetch Hetchy from San Francisco, and basically you go
east through the Central Valley and towns like Oakdale, where you can buy big
baskets of fruit grown in the local orchards. Hetch Hetchy is located on the
northwest corner of Yosemite National Park, which is far less trodden than the
main valley, FYI.
STAYING THERE
There is great
lodging within a couple miles from each other: camping by a creek with your own
“bear box” and flat tent site (Dimond-O Campground), cabins in San Francisco’s
own Camp Mather, or deluxe accommodation with a restaurant at the historic Evergreen Lodge.
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| Trail between Wapama Falls and Rancheria Falls |
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| Bee on lupine flowers |
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| The O'Shaughnessy Dam |
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| Hetch Hetchy Reservoir |
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| Indian paintbrush |
