Take Action to Improve Access at Hetch Hetchy

Friends,

We need your help.

Please sign our letter to Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon, and support the effort to improve access and the visitor experience at Hetch Hetchy.

Click letter to sign

When the Raker Act was passed allowing Hetch Hetchy Reservoir to be constructed, San Francisco promised and Congress expected that the Hetch Hetchy area would be used for park purposes and water supply purposes, Unfortunately, Hetch Hetchy is not treated like the rest of the park. The gates close daily. Camping is not allowed, unless you are leaving for or returning from a backpacking trip. There are few trails. And, in spite of repeated assurances made during the Congressional hearings, boats are not allowed on the water.

A trail to the tops of Tueeulala and Wapama Falls would be a wonderful and stunning day hike. (Photo: Chris Burkard, click to enlarge)

People need to go to Hetch Hetchy to see its beauty and learn its story. Experiencing the Hetch Hetchy canyon will bring substantial visitor benefits in the short run and increase support for restoration of the valley in the long run.

Thanks very much.

Spreck Rosekrans, Executive Director

P.S. Yosemite’s Opportunity: Options For Replacing Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, will be released soon. This report updates past research and explains how recent investments made by California’s cities, and presently available to San Francisco, would replace Hetch Hetchy Reservoir more than 15 times over.  

The vision of Restore Hetch Hetchy is to return to the people Yosemite Valley’s lost twin, Hetch Hetchy – a majestic glacier-carved valley with towering cliffs and waterfalls, an untamed place where river and wildlife run free, a new kind of national park.