Visited on 5/20/2018, Jeff and our two chocolate Labradors, Summer and Skye joined me on a business trip to give Drinking Water examinations in the Central Valley of California. On our 18th Anniversary, Jeff and I loaded up the dogs and traveled east from our camping spot at Shaver Lake over to Wishon Reservoir. It was a really nice drive through Dinkey Creek and several creeks with waterfalls and we made a brief stop at McKinley Grove of Big Redwood Trees. Wishon Reservoir is one of my favorite lakes, beautiful with a capital B!!! This 970 acre reservoir is located at an elevation of 6,550 feet above sea level with pines trees and rocky, granite shoreline. Not nearly as amazing as its cousin w/ the domes to the north, Courtright, Wishon has less granite & less wind, but more accessible backroads to explore, plus more car camping options. Both lakes are part of the Helms Creek hydro-electric project (dams) that make up the PG&E water infrastructure out in these parts – The Kings River Drainage System.
Wishon Dam is a very
impressive dam in Fresno County, California in the Sierra National Forest, in
the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. It impounds the North Fork Kings River to
form Wishon Reservoir.
The earthen and
rockfill gravity dam was constructed in 1958 by Pacific Gas and Electric
Company with a height of 260 feet and a length of 3,330 feet at its crest. Wishon Dam and its companion Courtright Dam,
which stands about five miles to the north, along with other smaller auxiliary
gravity dam structures, are elements of PG&E's Haas-Kings River Project. We wanted to go up another five miles up to
Courtright Reservoir, but the road was closed, so we will go another time.Courtright Reservoir serves as the upper reservoir for the Helms Pumped Storage Plant. Wishon Reservoir is the lower. During times of peak demand for electricity, which is also when it is most expensive, water is drained from Courtright Reservoir, run through the 1,212 MW Helms Power Plant and emptied into Wishon Reservoir. When demand and prices for electricity are low, water is pumped from Wishon Reservoir to Courtright Reservoir using the power plant's reversible turbines. Helms Power Plant is 1,000 feet underground in a chamber carved out of solid granite at the north end of Wishon Lake. It is similar to Southern California Edison's Eastwood Powerhouse near Shaver Lake, which is also a pumped-storage plant.
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