Sierra Trip Reports

Dates: Saturday, October 8 – Sunday, October 9, 2011

Location: Hetch Hetchy, Rancheria Falls Trail, Yosemite National Park

Hikers: Sarah & Nick

Photos: Nick (unless otherwise noted)

Synopsis: Sarah and I had originally made plans to head over Tioga Pass to the Eastern Sierra and head down to Convict Canyon to hike up into Lake Genevieve and Lake Wit-So-Nah-Pa with views of Red Slate Mountain. We were hoping to get great views of the changing leaves in the high country and the solitude of Convict Canyon.

Unfortunately, on Wednesday-Thursday a strong storm from the PNW moved across Northern and Central California and dropped 1-2 feet of snow in the upper elevations across the Sierra above 8,000 ft. While Tioga Pass did open on Saturday, reports of an abundance of snow up high had caused us to change our plans earlier in the week.

Ultimately, we both wanted to stay out of the snow and this gave me the excuse to head to Hetch Hetchy – and area I always wanted to explore but frankly just drive right on by every time I am heading into the Park or the Eastside.

Without getting into too much detail, Hetch Hetchy reservoir was formed by the construction of O’Shaughnessy Dam in 1928 and the reservoir serves as the primary drinking source of water in San Francisco. You can read more about the history of Hetch Hetchy, the controversy surrounding its formation (including appeals from John Muir) and a general summary here: National Park Service – Hetch Hetchy Valley

Hetch Hetchy from O’Shaughnessy Dam.

We took the 13 mile round trip trail out to Rancheria Falls, which leaves from O’Shaughnessy Dam. It was a fun hike. Although you are following the boundary of the reservoir most of the way, the trail meanders up and down rocky cliffs and forest bands, with nice elevation change and scenery changing and keeping it interesting. Both Sarah and I agreed it was a very fun hike with great views!

Sarah at the Dam, all geared up and ready to go – I was really pumped for the trip as Sarah and I have not yet done any overnight trips and this one went perfect. Most importantly, Sarah had a blast and is super excited to explore more of the Sierra (which makes me pumped as well).

Yours truly – the weather was great and you would have never known that the High Sierra was otherwise covered with snow (being down around 4,000 ft. at Hetch Hetchy). Photo: Sarah

Some recent trail maintenance – I thought the textures looked cool.

Sarah showing the scale of the reservoir – like I mentioned above the ups and downs and contour changes keep this hike interesting. You can make out some snow in the distance, but the sun was absolutely hampering the photos even with a polarizing filter on – high noon will do that to you!

Wapama Falls (approximately 1,100 feet) is one of the most powerful falls in Yosemite and flows year round. It is only around 2.5 miles to reach it – so there are a lot of day hikers heading out on the trail to the Northern Wall of Hetch Hetchy to check it out. I was surprised it was flowing so much given it is very late in the season – would be cool to see its power in the spring run-off (although the trail shuts down).

We took a break by the footbridges to check out the falls.

The cascading run-offs in the apron were pretty cool.

Good spot for lunch too!

Once we got past Wapama Falls there were way less people on the trail. We did run into some other groups, but folks did a good job about spreading out.

From this point you lose a decent amount of elevation, but then gain it back heading up to that platform area in the upper left. That is the approximate location of Rancheria Falls (which are actually a long series of separate waterfalls and cascades).

Heading across a footbridge before the final climb up to the falls.

Up by the Rancheria Falls area, there other folks, but people were very spread out in the area. Some groups were far off the trail in a lower portion of the falls, but Sarah and I continued on into the wooded area where there was good flat ground. I think on the map this is designated as “campsites”, but it is not numbered or anything like that. Just a designated area that has already been impacted so the NPS suggests the area as a good spot to minimize use. We found a good spot on the edge of that area and although there were other groups, everyone was quiet and respectful (with plenty of space).

Here is a lower part of many sections of falls –we chose to keep going up trail.

We headed over to a treed-area that was very close to an upper portion of Rancheria Falls.

After quickly setting up the tent, we walked over to Rancheria Creek to relax.

And take in the amazing views.

While we were up there, the sun was starting to set.

So I headed back up the trail to get some shots of the sun dropping below Kalona Rock.

A couple of minutes before the color really light up the sky – I had to bail as I didn’t have my headlamp and would have to cross-country back to camp.

On the way back once I found the trail, I had to stop and capture the sunset in full force.

Great night chilling by the fire (yeah, I had to try and get all comic-book with this one!).

And crashing for a great night’s sleep.

Unfortunately it was almost a full-moon so the star shots were really not great so I just went to bed. I woke up at 5 AM and figured I would head out to see if the moon was at least below the horizon – it was, but so was the Milky Way. So nothing really great, but I did get some shots of the stars that were still kicking and looking better without the moonlight.

It only got down to around 40-45 degrees that night – pretty funny as I was in my 32 degree synthetic (which is really like a 40 degree) and in a t-shirt, but Sarah sleeps cold and was rocking the 15 degree down! And pants and a jacket! She cracks me up some times – too cold to get up out of that cocoon of warmth here!

In seriousness, it was cool in the trees so we walked over to Rancheria Creek to enjoy some sunlight and warm drinks. Photo: Sarah

The 6-mile hike back was very quick as most of the elevation change is going downhill. Like I said, sometimes this hike is surprising with some cool micro-forests to travel through. Photo: Sarah

And then you turn the corner and, boom – huge views.

A great weekend out and definitely the first of many for Sarah in the Sierra.