The forgotten and flooded Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is poised in the spotlight of a century-old environmental battle, while a small group of climbers continue to push lines above the water.

Sean Jones was working another project in the Fjord, which as usual for Sean meant juggling. His little family in El Portal, the center of his life. Their home, half rebuilt. Work, also construction. Climbing sponsors — after all those dirtbag years he finally had some. Running back out to the dam at twilight to make the government curfew. And this wall.
He was amazed that the line was coming together. But just. Linking up the crack systems was face climbing. Thin, but the holds kept appearing. Kept being just climbable. This was his third major climb in this strangely quiet valley — quiet except for the constant roar of Wapama Falls over his shoulder, a roar maybe even throatier than Yosemite Falls, itself not so distant. And Hetch Hetchy was Sean’s fourth major area for projects in the new millennium, after working forgotten corners of Yosemite Valley, the boldly featured walls of Shuteye Ridge, and a massive backcountry dome far up the great San Joaquin River Valley.
It always came down to the place itself. This valley everyone had heard of and no one knew. Because it had been filled with water. The water was making all the difference — making it noisy and keeping it quiet. Blinding with reflection, and scorching with reflected heat. The concrete plug in the throat of the valley was attracting a lot of political heat, too. Homeland Security was afraid someone would blow it up, and environmentalists were afraid no one ever would.
Reduced to comparisons, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir works the imagination southward, sending it a mere 15 miles, as the raven flies, to Yosemite Valley for bearings. The similarities are hard to ignore … as long as you keep your eyes above what is less than affectionately called the “bathtub ring,” beneath which the granite and talus have been mopped clean of life by the synthetic ebb and flow of water. (The water, circa 300 feet deep, is so pure it doesn’t need filtering when it issues from taps in San Francisco.)
The climbing here commands a certain respect. None of it easy, none likely to attract the weekend climber who can’t muster a thirst for the unknown — who isn’t comfortable with the stiff grades, or the curfew, or the camping ban, or rattlesnakes, or the mountain lions, or the poison oak, or long approaches, or lack of comforts, or the absence of spraylords who make the “other” valley so attractive and not so attractive at the same time.