Hetch Hetchy Dam/Valley

I am amazed that not many people know about the Hetch Hetchy valley, it's like a sister valley to Yosemite but at lower grounds and not a valley anymore. The valley was converted into a dam and reservoir to provide water to the city of San Francisco. This valley has a lot of history and political story behind it which can readily be found on the net.

Hetch hetchy valley was the favorite of all in Yosemite to John Muir, he spent his last days in hope of conserving it but fate had some other plans. This was our first visit to the Hetch Hetchy valley and in one word it was beautiful. The reservoir was blue at its best neighbouring the towering granites and displaying the humongous Wapana waterfall which is undoubtedly looked the largest of all waterfalls in entire Yosemite valley.

Since Hetchy Hetchy is not very crowded like the Yosemite valley, parking was easy to find just at the dam entrance. Trail to Wapama falls is a 5 mile roundtrip walk with not much elevation gain.

The trail starts with a short tunnel at the other end of the dam, and it moves on the edges of the reservoir. The granite mountain on the right is Kolana Rock a large portion of which is submerged in the reservoir. If you have seen the X-Men II you might relate with me when I say, the reservoir looked mysterious.

Wapama waterfall is humongous, it's huge when compared to many other waterfalls in the Yosemite valley and still had water even in this serious drought. The last section of this trail is wooden bridge, which had washed away few years back owing to high water levels leading to casualties. So cross it with caution.

A mini rainbow at waterfall edge. Another note of caution would be to look out for rattlesnakes, we saw two on our way back.

The trail continues on to reach elevated levels, to the lake source for Wapama, but we left that for another day.

This valley is serene with no crowd, you can hear silence and enjoy it. Its nature at its best.

Adieu,
Divya