We were supposed to be having a lie in until 8.30 this morning. I was awake from about 6 though due to a very loud cockerel outside. It's the first cockerel I've heard that actually says "cockadoodledoo" rather than just noisy crowing.
The morning didn't get off to a good start when I got in the shower to find that the water was tepid at best. So we had some very quick showers and left the cabin shivering.
Fortunately, the day got better from there. Breakfast isn't included here, so we went to the same restaurant/diner as last night. The Americans really know how to make good scrambled eggs.
After breakfast, Claire went into reception and had a moan about the shower before we set off. We weren't holding out much hope but felt we ought to complain. The showers over here are normally very impressive and this one really let the Americans down.
It didn't take us long to get to Hetch Hetchy. It was a lovely day, with clear skies and sunshine, but not too hot. Although Hetch Hetchy is part of the national park just like Yosemite Valley, they don't seem to encourage people to go there. There's no facilities there apart from toilets and a very small amount of car parking. They're very welcoming when you go, but it's not really advertised.
We parked by the dam, and after a couple of minutes a Park Ranger approached us, and had a chat with us whilst having a furtive look in our car boot and rucksacks as we were packing them. He was very nice and friendly, but we couldn't help noticing the gun and taser on his belt! None of the other national park rangers we have seen in any of the other parks we've visited have been armed. In fact, this was the first gun we'd seen since arriving in America!
We didn't enquire about the weapons, but assume that the rangers who work near the reservoir have to be more vigilant in case someone tried to contaminate the water. It does supply over 2 million people with drinking water after all.
Hetch Hetchy is the next main valley along from Yosemite Valley. It's less visited, and controversial because about 100 years ago, the dam was built and the valley flooded. Before that, the valley was flat floored, similar to Yosemite Valley. Apparently, the flooding was prompted by an earthquake and a drought and then a big fire in San Francisco which they couldn't put out for ages. Don't know if they forgot about all the sea water surrounding the entire city, but it's a bit late to point that out, and I'm sure there are some complicated reasons why they couldn't use it.
There was a big fuss at the time, as the area had already been designated a national park. The eco warriors of the time lost the battle though, so Hetch Hetchy valley was changed forever.
Having said all that, we rather liked it the way it is. Except you're not allowed to go canoeing in the reservoir.
The walk we did today was from the right hand side of the dam, working our way clockwise, across the dam and alongside the reservoir, to the waterfall you can see in the centre of the first photo.
At the start of the walk, we spotted a big bird flying overhead. It was white underneath, and looked like a bird of prey but we didn't know what is was. Taser Ranger identified it as an Osprey. We hoped to see it more during the day, but unfortunately we only saw it one more time, and it was miles away then.
When we got to the waterfall, there was red tape across the path, because the spray from the waterfall was considered dangerous. After checking for rangers, we ducked under the tape and got soaked by the waterfalls.
I find it a bit strange that it's OK to go camping when there are bears and mountain lions on the prowl, but a trail is closed because of a bit of mist from a waterfall.
We exchanged anti-stories with some other walkers later. "Did you go past the tape?" "Of course not, it looked like far too much fun" "Neither did we, we'd never do anything like that, and besides, we would have got wet".
I think most people ignored the red tape.
We had our cheese and tomato sandwiches on some nice smooth granite rocks with water flowing over them in patches. Not the patch we were picnicking on, obviously. It was very tranquil, and we only went back because the sun started going behind clouds.
The route back to the car was uneventful, apart from a snake which slithered across the path in front of us. Claire narrowly avoided treading on it, although it's hard to avoid treading on things when you've got feet as big as Claire. The snake made it to the undergrowth unharmed and we made it past unpoisoned.
We got back to our cabin to find that we had hot water! Very hot in fact, almost the opposite problem to this morning. I eventually managed to balance the taps and am squeaky clean now.
Tomorrow we've got a long day of not particularly interesting driving ahead of us. We've decided we want our last few days on the road to be good ones, and as we haven't seen the sea for ages, we're going to try and get to the coast as quickly as possible, so we can have a leisurely drive on the Pacific Coast Highway down towards San Francisco.
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Location:Hetch Hetchy, Yosemite National Park
Top notch blog purely for mentioning Clarice's feet x
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