Hetch Hetchy backpacking
Hetch Hetchy — the reservoir that hydrates millions of people in San Francisco — is one of the destinations in Yosemite for which you can easily get overnight camping permits. The dam itself is a nice (apparently) destination for road trips or family drives. I personally think it is lame. In addition to the easy permit access, the trails that start at the reservoir are much closer to San Francisco than some of the other trailheads.
My friends and I got a permit two days before leaving to camp in the backcountry (made easy for Yellowstone via recreation.gov), with the projected destination being Laurel Lake. The 15.7 mile in-and-out seemed like a nice, easy start to the backpacking season in late May.
We headed out from San Mateo at around 7am, arriving at the park entrance for a safety briefing at 10am. Fire, rattlesnake, and bear warnings are the jist of it. Bear canisters are required and when we arrived at the backpackers parking lot, we found rows of bear-safe food storage containers to keep your cars (and bears) safe.
A weird thing about the start of this trail is that the backpackers’ parking lot is a bit of a hike/walk to the trail head, which is the dam. This trail is overgrown, badly marked, and a bit of a climb — but it is a very brief one. You’ll know you’re at the end since you’ll see cars parked along the road that leads to the dam.
To the right of the dam you see the reservoir and to the left, a huge jet of water that must have a purpose that is unknown to me. Your trail starts right after a short tunnel that smells musty. For the first mile or so of the trail, we were accompanied by a bunch of day hikers who were headed to see a waterfall nearby. Soon after, a few switchbacks for the next mile make up a significant portion of the elevation gain. Though the path is a mild incline for the rest of the trail, we saw a lot of huge trees that had fallen down during the winter blocking our path.
The weather had been nice and cool the whole hike up, and all of the sudden, it started hailing. It hailed on and off for half an hour, and the sun shone right after — as if none of it happened!
Tragically, soon after we decided to camp early at Gravel Pit (halfway to Laurel Lake), it started raining, which is much worse than hail.
The lake by Gravel Pit is quite still but either due to the hail or just status quo, the lake waters were quite muddy and it was difficult to get a satisfyingly clean bottle of water.
Thankfully, the next day the sun was shining and we noticed the butterflies and wildflowers on the easy way down!
The reservoir is pretty nice but not much of what you would normally expect from Yosemite (the valley) vibes. A nice and easy weekend backpacking trip, though — which is often rare for San Francisco.
