Hetch Hetchy
Wednesday - 25 May 2005 - Groveland, California:
Today we drove about 30 miles down to the charming town of Sonora
for lunch. Sonora has about ten Mexican restaurants... so we had Mexican at
the same place we had Mexican the last time we were in Sonora. It is still a
good place to eat. We looked through a few shops and then rested in the
shade in the City Park. Sonora also has great cell service, so we answered
our voice mail, etc.
Sonora Safety: Pick up a six-pack and a six-shooter! For "fun", we took Old Priest Grade back to
Groveland. This 2-mile hill was part of the
original Highway 120 up to Yosemite. Old Priest Grade is so steep, they
built an easier (still not easy) 8-mile road to bypass the slope. Even
driving the Honda, we turned-off the air conditioning for more power to get
up this steep hill.
We rested at the RV for a bit and then headed out to
Hetch Hetchy for a late afternoon drive, hoping to spot
some wildlife. We saw a rabbit and a duck and about a million mosquitoes,
but fabulous scenery.
John Muir felt Hetch Hetchy was a "twin" to Yosemite and
fought to keep the Tuolumne River from being dammed. But, he lost this (his
last) fight and construction on the dam began in 1914. The reservoir
provides water for San Francisco and is not filtered. (Chlorine is added,
but sorry, I think the water in San Francisco tastes awful.) There is so
much water coming into the reservoir now that they are releasing water like
crazy, hoping to not have it over-fill as it did last year. The dam stands
312 feet above the streambed. Hetch Hetchy Reservoir can hold about 117
billion gallons of water; is 8 miles long and is 306 feet at the deepest
point. The dam is in need of serious repairs and also needs millions of
dollars in improvements to get it up to code for earthquakes. Some people
don't like the idea of a reservoir/power plant in a National Park, though
I'm sure these people drink water and use electricity. Some people think the
dam needs to go and the valley returned. Click
here to read about the
drive to get rid of the damn dam.
Water over the O'Shaughnessy Dam
O'Shaughnessy Dam
Down river
Dam DT
Tueeulala Falls and Wapama Falls (really!) looking east across the reservoir
When DT was a boy, he used to come up here with his
brothers and friends to camp and fish! It was a crazy drive up here today.
We started noticing "NO PARKING" signs temporarily stuck into the ground
along the narrow road up to Hetch Hetchy. Coming around a corner, we saw
about 10 cars parked and, since this is the International Symbol for a
wildlife sighting, we thought we had come upon a bear, or possibly a
Sasquatch due to the large amount of traffic. Wrong. They were simply
campers lined up for the
Strawberry Music Festival! The
festival would open the gates in the morning for camping and they were all
"camping" on the road tonight to assure a good spot for the five-day
festival. (And you thought Parrotheads were crazy!) On our drive today we
passed - and I am not exaggerating - about 150 cars waiting to enter the
festival tomorrow morning. Now we understand why Yellowstone was so busy.
Our drive home was very pretty, into the pink sunset. We had a Purple path
to show us the way back.
Lupines line the road
RV Park:
Yosemite Pines RV Resort & Campground in Groveland - about 20 miles from
Oak Flat Entrance to Yosemite National Park.
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