Why ‘water walks’ are becoming a trend for California hikers
The last leg of Nina Gordon-Kirsch’s monthlong hiking journey was a 10-mile ascent up the western flank of the Sierra Nevada to a pair of gleaming alpine lakes near Ebbetts Pass, about equidistant between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park. … The moment capped a 33-day sojourn along the length of the Mokelumne … She’s not alone: California’s complicated relationship with water, strained by historic drought, is driving all kinds of people to embark on “water walks.” The practice involves tracing a river or waterway “from sea to source,” or in reverse direction, under one’s own power, in an effort to gain perspective on our complex water supply.