Here’s the Best Dammed Hike You'll Find Outside Yosemite Valley

A 5-mile trail (round-trip) leads from the Hetch Hetchy Valley’s O’Shaughnessy Dam to Wapama Falls in Yosemite National Park. The route skirts the edge of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times/TNS

By Christopher Reynolds From Los Angeles Times

The water was winning. Fed by the heaviest Sierra snowmelt in decades, it gushed down the narrow valley’s walls and rushed across the trail in front of me. The bravest and most foolish hikers plunged on through, ice-cold whitewater up to their knees, a steep rocky drop below.