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.