The reservoir at the beginning of the hike is steeped in the struggles between humans and nature, and between human and human, that have defined California and its scarce water resources. John Muir and the Sierra Club battled Gifford Pinchot, the US Forest Service, and the City of San Francisco over the fate of Hetch Hetchy Valley, already protected in a National Park but viewed as a sustainable and pristine water supply for the state's largest and ever-growing metropolis. The conservationists won out over the preservationists when Congress granted the City their permit to build O'Shaughnessy Dam, but Muir's legacy was never forgotten and continues to guide policy and public thinking. As long as our state experiences the competing interests of agriculture and urban growth, this struggle will never end, so we need both camps to find compromises and intelligent solutions in order to best guide our growth. It's too bad that Muir and Pinchot turned from friends to adversaries over the Hetch Hetchy struggle, as men of their influence could have guided our state onto a more consensus-based path. Alas, that has never been the path chosen by our countrymen, as nothing unifies us other than the fact that we each seek to further our own self-interest.
As we hiked further up the Canyon, we left behind the reservoir along with any other signs of man, other than the path upon which we trod. The river was flowing low this time of year, the late summer, exposing a broad and cobble-filled floodplain where the canyon was wide enough. In narrow spots, however, the river fell through chutes. Granite precipices were also common, over which cascades plunged along the smooth granite that Muir coined "glacial pavement", and above which pools took shape.
The hike was strenuous, the air was hot, and the cool riverine pools were much too inviting inviting, spurring the hike-mother too often to scowl and herd his fellows away from their fun and back to the march up the canyon to get back to the car before the night waned too dark.
