• Home
  • Thesis
  • Timeline
  • Background
    • Hetch Hetchy Valley
    • San Francisco Water Needs
    • 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
  • Debate
    • Proponents
    • Opponents
    • The Debate Continues
  • Diplomacy
    • Conservationist Advocacy
    • Preservationists Lack In Their Efforts
  • Impact / Analysis
    • Successes
    • Failures
    • Consequences
  • Supplemental Materials
    • Process Paper
    • Bibliography
    • Transcripts>
      • Dr. Gray Brechin
      • Mr. William Hasencamp
      • Dr. Roderick Nash
      • Mr. Spreck Rosekrans
Picture
Hetch Hetchy Valley Map
Source: San Francisco Walking Maps
                                       source: Restore Hetch Hetchy
"It appears therefore that Hetch-Hetchy Valley, far from being a plain, common, rock-bound meadow, as many who have not seen it seem to suppose, is a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain mansions.
 
As in Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its walls seem to the nature-lover to glow with life, whether leaning back in repose or standing erect in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike. And how softly these mountain rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep --their brows in the sky, their feet set in groves and gay emerald meadows, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their adamantine bosses, while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and waterfalls to stir all the air into music -- things frail and fleeting and types of permanence meeting here and blending, as if into this glorious mountain temple Nature had gathered here choicest treasures, whether great or small, to draw her lovers into close confiding communion with her"

John Muir, The Hetch Hetchy Valley," Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. VI, No. 4, January, 1908. Source: Sierra Club

> Back to Background

by Anoushka Bose, Junior Division, Individual Website