USA Trip Day 9 - Hetch Hetchy
AWe took a trip up to the North-West corner of the park today, to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The subject of much political wrangling in the early part of the 20th Century, the O’Shaughnessy Dam now stands across the mouth of the Tuolomne River and the reservoir provides water to San Francisco.
Hetch Hetchy is a good 40 miles on from Yosemite Village, so a couple of hours drive from Wawona where we’re staying. The last petrol station is at Crane Flats and we sailed past it, comfortable on our slightly-under-quarter-full tank. As we made the turn off the 120 to Hetch Hetchy, the petrol light came on, but we figured that as it was only 10 miles to our destination it wasn’t too much to worry about.
It turns out that the 10 miles that the sign suggested were just to the ranger station entrance to the “vicinity” of Hetch Hetchy, not our ultimate destination. As we pulled up to the parking space by the Dam, our Ford Taurus helpfully announced to us that we were 35 miles from being Empty.
Mind you , the trip was well worth it. I’ve been astounded by the different terrains and vistas that Yosemite offers in such a comparatively small area; we’ve seen lush woodland in Mariposa Grove, the foothills of a mountain range in Yosemite Valley, an inland beach in Mirror Lake, an alpine landscape up on Glacier Point and today, a desert by a huge expanse of water.
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When we finally reached the Wapama Falls, they actually had water in them! Not a great deal, but more than we were expecting. To be honest, even if it had been dry, the views would have made it worth the trip.
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We rolled back into Crane Flats gas station with the Taurus beeping at us that we had 9 miles to spare before empty. We have a long drive to Death Valley tomorrow, so we filled up…
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