31 July 2006
Hetch Hetchy
On Saturday, and on a whim, I drove to Hetch Hetchy for a little hike to Wapama Falls. The day was hot, but it was well worth the sweat, and you'll see from my photos.
I wish I had been able to photograph the nice rattlesnake I saw, but it was too well-camouflaged once it had fled from the trail into the brush. We looked at each other for a minute, while it tasted me with its Jacobson's organ. It looked more or less like this.
Hetch Hetchy Valley is just like Yosemite Valley, except it's been filled with water ever since the construction of the O'Shaughnessy Dam. Now it's a reservoir that supplies drinking water to the City of San Francisco. The tap water in my Camelbak came from the body of water that I had driven for four hours to look at. In our post-9/11 world, I was surprised to see no real security on the dam that's responsible for sending unfiltered drinking water to a major city.
You can learn about the history of the reservoir here.