Hetch Hetchy Be Dammed: Logistics

Season: Early spring through late fall, keeping in mind that the summer months, due to the "photomultiplier" (the reservoir, which reflects intense amounts of light and heat), can be brutally hot.

Camping: Diamond O, Car-camping sites with bathrooms; $16 a night. Visit reserveUSA.com.

Lodging, eats, and drinks: Evergreen Lodge (evergreenlodge.com), near the entrance to the Park, is the Hetch Hetchy's answer to the Mountain Room Bar in Yosemite. Full bar, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Cabins run from $99 to $259 a night.

Climbing: Despite the similarities and comparisons to Yosemite Valley, climbing in Hetch Hetchy is more backcountry than front country. No guidebook yet exists, and the approaches are long. Also, factor in the hard facts and hassles of the mandatory curfew (9 p.m. in summer, 5 p.m. in winter) and the camping ban.

A Hetch Hetchy sampler, going from left to right around the reservoir as you stand up on the dam.

Hetch Hetchy Beach
After the long tunnel, on the far side of the dam (rainy-day bouldering anyone?), you'll find a talus slope that leads down to the beach. (That is, if the water is low, which is usually in the spring or fall.)  Here, you'll find short, one-pitch warm-up routes created by Tim Tuomey and Nick Simon. The best are Arrrgh (5.7), Clown Mobile (5.10), Buried Treasure (5.11d), and the appropriately named A Day at the Beach (5.9). Not to mention the longer, overhanging 5.10 hand crack Atlantis, in the dam's direction.

Wapama Rock
Wapama Mama (VI 5.10 A3-), 12 pitches. FA: Charles "Footie" Field, Forrest Rade, 1986. (See supertopo.com for topo.)

Photomultiplier (VI, 5.9, A3), 12 pitches. FA: Clint Cummins, Joel Ager, Tim Tuomey, Chris Chan. So named for the famed reflection of reservoir water that bounces onto the walls from below, heating up the routes like a solar panel.

Nose (VI 5.13a project).

Zöe Temple Area
Zöe Temple (5.10c), two pitches. FA: Sean Jones. Splitter so clean and obvious that it looks like it was picked up and shipped from Indian Creek.

Hetch Hetchy Dome
South Face (VI 5.9 A2 or 5.12c). FA: (lower half, aka Inclement Buttress) Joe Faint, Chris Jones, Galen Rowell, 1970; FA (entire route): Galen Rowell, Chris Jones, 1970.

Zeus (V 5.10+ C4/A3), 9 pitches. FA: Tim Tuomey and Clint Cummins.

Resurrection (V 5.12c), 18 pitches. FA: Sean Jones and Brian Ketron

In Memoriam (V 5.11d), 14 pitches. FA: Sean Jones and Jake Jones.

The Shire (east of Hetchy Hetchy Dome)
Two Guys From Sacramento TR Area. Great for warm-ups; five single routes,
all to one anchor (5.7 to 5.10d).

Echoes (5.11c). Slab. FFA: Tim Tuomey and Nick Simon.

Lunar Landscape (5.11d). Hetchy Hetchy's answer to Oz, in Tuolumne Meadows.
FA: Tim Tuomey

Keverne and the Phoenix (5.10c), 7 pitches. FFA: Tim Tuomey and Clint
Cummins.

Blood and Fire (5.10+). FFA: Tim Tuomey.

Kolona Rock
North Face of Kolona (V 5.9 A3). On their third try, Harding and Rowell
climbed the 1,800-foot face of Kolona. Of the 16 pitches only, half were
freed. FA: Galen Rowell and Warren Harding, 1971.

West Face of Kolona (III 5.8), 7 pitches. Runs up the huge right-facing
dihedral splitting the center of the west face. FA: John Liebeskind and
partner, 1984.

Route information provided by Tim Tuomey and Sean Jones.