Where the twain meet - Mount Lyell, Yosemite National Park, California - Window on the West - Illustration

Sunset, Sept, 1993

The rivalry between Los Angeles and San Francisco runs long and deep. Newspaper columnists have made careers out of lobbing salvos at each other's beloved burgs. And there's no love lost between Dodgers and Giants fans. But of all the rivalries between the two cities, none has been more heated than the one over water, which is why it may surprise you to learn that Los Angeles and San Francisco actually get a small percentage of their water from the same source, Mount Lyell, a 13,114-foot peak at the southeastern edge of Yosemite National Park.

The mountain's northern glaciers drain into the Tuolomne River watershed, while those on the peak's eastern face melt toward the Owens Valley, proving, perhaps, that Angelenos and San Franciscans have something in common after all.