Lost Landscape Garden, Flooded Mountain Temple

Rancheria Falls

Yosemite National Park

13-miles round trip, moderate

What if I told you that you could take a zipline tour of breathtaking Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.  Is that something you might be interested in?  In a sense, you can do just that.  Not literally: ziplines would violate some central canon of National Park Service dogma (that somehow acquiesced to a commercial airport at the foot of the Grand Tetons, another blog post altogether).  But figuratively, the trail to Rancheria Falls zips around the north shore of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, past a series of waterfalls and through a weathered granite wonderland.  

Hetch Hetchy Valley, Early 1900s, USGS Photo.

Unlike strenuous climbing entailed when visiting many of the spectacular attractions of neighboring Yosemite Valley, the Hetch Hetchy experience is brought to you without the inconvenience of significant elevation change, thanks to generous "contributions" from the thirsty city of San Francisco and the folks who dammed and diverted the waters of the Tuolumne River early in the 20^th century.

View from the Trail: Granite, Reservoir, and Lupine.

The rub, of course, is that we can no longer view Hetch Hetchy in its pristine condition.  Once thought to rival Yosemite Valley in beauty and grandeur, the former valley floor now lies submerged behind O’Shaughnessy Dam, the starting point of the hike.  Even so, the views of Kolana Rock and the valley that open up across the lower end of the reservoir are breathtaking.  After crossing the dam from the trailhead on the south side, you pass through a tunnel bored through the granite valley wall and continue on an old service road.  The path soon narrows, occasionally exposing hikers to steep falloffs and the reservoir below.

The big-ticket attractions of the hike, we suppose, are the waterfalls.  There are three named cascades: Tueeulala, Wapama and Rancheria, in succession. If you visit during heavy snowmelt in the Spring, you are certain to see more.  Less magnificent, for example, than Yosemite Falls, the waterfalls of Hetch Hetchy are nonetheless impressive in height, power, and volume of water flow.  It is impossible to view them and not wonder how they might have appeared from the former valley floor.

Yellow-Eyed Salamander.

There are plenty of other reasons to visit.  If you like granite, it is underfoot, overhead, and everywhere you look.  Evidence of glaciation is also striking, both on a macro- (U-shaped valley) and micro- (abrasion and striation of native granite) level.  Wildflowers are abundant during Spring and Summer.  Wildlife is as well, particularly if you avoid heavy trail traffic that is common during summer months.  The camping area at Rancheria Falls is a magnet for black bear; Stellar’s Jays and Western Grey Squirrels are almost always present on the trail.  If you are fortunate, you may even spot a Yellow-eyed Salamander trailside.
 

Mother Black Bear and Cub at Rancheria Falls.

In truth, we wouldn't be interested in a zipline tour of Hetch Hetchy Valley.  The 13-mile round trip hike to Rancheria Falls provides a more traditional and less frenetic Sierra Nevada experience.  Thought-provoking, too: if you would like further information about ongoing efforts to restore the valley, a place John Muir declared "a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples," to its authentic un-dammed state, visit Restore Hetch Hetchy.

Time and Again: A Hike for All Seasons

West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon

Coconino National Forest

6-miles round trip, easy

Before we begin, a cursory nod to tin can tourism. The drive to the West Fork trailhead is unfailingly part of this adventure: a provider of perspective and a precursor to the wonderment of the hike.  State Route 89A between Flagstaff and Sedona passes through the heart of Oak Creek Canyon and offers ten-plus miles of hairpin turns, white-knuckle grades, and jaw-dropping scenery before the tin can pulls into the parking area and feet touch the trail. 

Red Rock and Ice, 2012.

Late December, 2012: We are standing at the first crossing of Oak Creek, considering how to safely—and dryly—traverse the stream.  At the risk of sounding repetitive in an echoing gorge... we’ve been here before, been here before, been here before.  Over the years and through the seasons, various permutations of our group have hiked the West Fork: in springtime, summer, and early autumn, on cloudy days and sunny days, in warm temperatures and cool temperatures, with high water and low water.  On this day—one of the final days of 2012—the sky is clear, the air is cold, and Oak Creek is running frigid, frozen over in spots. So it’s a bit of déjà vu, but our collective memory is now laced with ice and cloaked in white.

To reach this first crossing, we have passed through the remains of an earlier day: an abandoned orchard, rich with the promise of untended fruit on spring hikes, craggy and forlorn on this winter visit.  Architectural fragments of Mayhew's Lodge, built in 1926 and destroyed by fire in 1980, line the trail.  Legend tells us that the resort was patronized by the likes of Zane Grey, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Walt Disney, and President Herbert Hoover.

Moon Window, Mayhew's Lodge Ruins, December 2012.

Invariably we pause here, pondering previous visitors and surveying a toppled stone fireplace, crumbling pillars, a small cave used for storage.  For most of the year, the ruins are practically obscured by capricious, untamed foliage.  On this December hike, however, they are snow-dusted and austere, almost ethereal.  A moon window mounted in a stone wall frames the landscape, conferring a contemplative mood upon the hike.

Oak Creek Turn-Around, Spring 2004.

After the ruins, the trail bears right and begins its ramble up Oak Creek Canyon.  Springtime, summer, early autumn: it is a leisurely stroll, with little elevation change, ample shade in warmer months, and transcendent sandstone cliffs towering over every step of the sandy trail.  The path is clear for the first three miles, intermittently crossing Oak Creek as it ripples along the canyon floor, occasionally asking hikers to make tactical use of river stones or to splash-step in shallow water.  

Beyond the customary turn-around, the canyon walls close in upon Oak Creek, and we've surmised the journey requires more frequent boulder-hopping, wading and, dare we say, swimming as it vanishes into the Secret Mountain/Red Rocks Wilderness.
    

Crossing Oak Creek, December 2012.

The trail, then, is familiar, the setting and scenery like cherished friends; and yet, winter introduces remarkable variation to the canyon-scape.  The hike becomes a story of interplay between snow and sandstone, a dialogue of quiet deliberation, with recurring questions of what water-darkened rocks to trust, which fallen logs to test, whether iced-over stretches of creek will support three hikers, two hikers, one hiker at a time... or none at all.  Accidental slips or slides into the creek mean something different in December than they do in April, May, or early September: a soaking and somewhat refreshing inconvenience in mild weather turns suddenly and soddenly into a bone-chilling disruption to the winter hike. 

Oak Creek, December 2012.

In the end, December teaches us something about perspective, about considering the view from the opposite shore.  At the final crossing of Oak Creek— a perplexing and precarious traverse on the outbound hike—the best way to proceed becomes clearer and consequently less precarious.  Single file, we cross a frozen-solid span tucked around a downstream bend and are safely across Oak Creek for the last time this day.  

Oak Creek Canyon, Late Summer 1999.

Returning to the trailhead, we encounter a cheerful young couple looking notionally, if not physically, prepared for the hike.  The man is pushing a baby (also cheerful) in a stroller.  We’ll never know how many crossings, if any, the cheerful group with the stroller complete, but—having experienced the West Fork of Oak Creek across the years and in different seasons—we understand, at least, the motivation.  The hike is new again every time we skirt the ruins and enter the canyon.