So we've been to Yosemite a couple times before, and the first two trips were amazing. Our first trip, in 2009, was a two night backpacking journey on the North Rim of the Yosemite Valley with awesome views of Half Dome along the whole route. Needless to say, getting out of the valley and experiencing the park in a more personal way was an awesome experience.
Our second trip, on New Year's Eve this last year, was different, but equally breathtaking. We were able to go over Tioga Pass, which usually closes some time in October. The pass is usually covered in snow early in the fall season, but this year was unusually dry and warm, so we made the drive from June Lake. We saw frozen lakes with families playing hockey and ice skating, high Sierra peaks, and even drove to Olmsted point to catch an awesome glimpse of the most famous rock in the Yosemite Valley (which, by the way, was one of the first Blublogger shots).
Anyway, this time was a bit different. We had seen Tolumne Meadows and the Valley, so we were interested in seeing a part of the park that we had not yet explored. We drove into the Valley to see if we could get a campsite and were told that the only sites available were on the Western side of the park in Crane Flat CG. We took one, and headed up to set up camp. At that point we realized that we were not far from Hetch Hetchy.
The Hetch Hetchy Valley is a little bit of a sad story. It has been called the smaller twin of the Yosemite Valley because of the similar rock formations that lined the Tolumne River, and is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. In the 1920's, however, the Tolumne River was damned in the Valley to make a reservoir that would supply water to the city of San Francisco. Additional damns were created downstream of the reservoir as power producers for the Bay Area. The reservoir has changed the landscape of the Hetch Hetchy significantly.
When the damn was originally proposed there was a huge battle between environmentalists (led by John Muir) and capitalists who saw the damn as a way of meeting the needs of the ever-growing San Francisco Bay Area. This fight marked one of the first times in American history that environmentalists and capitalists clashed over a piece of land. The fight by the environmentalists did not stop upon the completion of the damn, and continues today.
Anyway, Hetch Hetchy was, and still is, an amazingly beautiful place that we will always remember our first visit to. Enjoy our photos!
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
Us, being tourists
One of the funniest Valley names in the World
Lacey at the Yosemite Valley Overlook
The North Face of Half Dome from the Valley floor
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