The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California. Named after California Governor Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown Sr., the over 400-mile (640 km) aqueduct is the principal feature of the California State Water Project.
Pacheco Pass, elevation 1,368 ft (417 m), is a low mountain pass located in the Diablo Range in southeastern Santa Clara County, California. It is the main route through the hills separating the Santa Clara Valley and the Central Valley.
The Delta–Mendota Canal is a 117-mile-long (188 km) aqueduct in central California, United States. The canal was designed and completed in 1951 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as part of the Central Valley Project. It carries freshwater to replace San Joaquin River water which is diverted into the Madera Canal and Friant-Kern Canal at Friant Dam.
San Luis Dam is a major earth-filled dam in Merced County, California, which forms San Luis Reservoir, the largest off-stream reservoir in the United States. The dam and reservoir are located in the Diablo Range to the east of Pacheco Pass and about 10 miles (16 km) west of Los Banos. San Luis Dam, a jointly-owned state and federal facility, stores more than 2 million acre feet (2.5 km3) of water for the California State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Although the dam is located in the valley of San Luis Creek, the majority of its water comes from man-made aqueducts which are supplied from other rivers in Northern California.
The San Luis Reservoir is an artificial lake on San Luis Creek in the eastern slopes of the Diablo Range of Merced County, California, approximately 12 mi (19 km) west of Los Banos on State Route 152, which crosses Pacheco Pass and runs along its north shore. It is the fifth largest reservoir in California. The reservoir stores water taken from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Water is pumped uphill into the reservoir from the O'Neill Forebay which is fed by the California Aqueduct and is released back into the forebay to continue downstream along the aqueduct as needed for farm irrigation and other uses. Depending on water levels, the reservoir is approximately nine miles (14 km) long from north to south at its longest point, and five miles (8 km) wide. At the eastern end of the reservoir is the San Luis Dam, the fourth largest embankment dam in the United States, which allows for a total capacity of 2,041,000 acre-feet (2,518,000 dam3). Pacheco State Park lies along its western shores.
Santa Nella is an unincorporated village and census-designated place (CDP) in Merced County, California, United States. It is located 10 miles (16 km) west-northwest of Los Banos at an elevation of 154 feet (47 m). As of the 2020 census, Santa Nella had a population of 2,211, up from 1,380 at the 2010 census.
The Dos Amigos Pumping Plant is a water pumping plant, constructed between 1963 and 1966 as part of the California State Water Project. It is able to withhold and transport water between Northern and Southern California through an approximately 444 mile aqueduct. It is located in Central California's San Joaquin Valley along Interstate 5, about 10 miles south of Los Banos in Merced County.
O'Neill Forebay is a forebay to the San Luis Reservoir created by the construction of O'Neill Dam across San Luis Creek approximately 12 miles (19 km) west of Los Banos, California, United States, on the eastern slopes of the Pacific Coast Ranges of Merced County.
O'Neill Dam is an earthfill dam on San Luis Creek, 12 miles (19 km) west of Los Banos, California, United States, on the eastern slopes of the Pacific Coast Ranges of Merced County. Forming the O'Neill Forebay, a forebay to the San Luis Reservoir, it is roughly 2.5 miles (4.0 km) downstream from the San Luis Dam.
Rancho San Luis Gonzaga was a 48,821-acre (197.57 km2) Mexican land grant in the Diablo Range, in present-day Santa Clara County and Merced County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Juan Carlos Pacheco and José Maria Mejía. The grant was bounded by Francisco Pérez Pachecos Rancho Ausaymas y San Felipe on the west, the San Joaquin River and San Joaquin Valley on the east, and Los Baños Creek on the south.
Rancho Panoche de San Juan y Los Carrisalitos was a 22,175-acre (89.74 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Merced County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Julian Ursua and Pedro Romo. The name means "raw sugar of San Juan and the little patches of reeds" in Spanish.
El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles, also known as El Camino Viejo and the Old Los Angeles Trail, was the oldest north-south trail in the interior of Spanish colonial Las Californias (1769–1822) and Mexican Alta California (1822–1848), present day California. It became a well established inland route, and an alternative to the coastal El Camino Real trail used since the 1770s in the period.
Garzas Creek, originally Arroyo de las Garzas, is a tributary of the San Joaquin River draining the eastern slopes of part of the Diablo Range within the San Joaquin Valley of California.
Los Baños Creek or Los Banos Creek, originally El Arroyo de los Baños, is a tributary stream of the San Joaquin River. Its source drains the slopes of the Diablo Range within the Central Valley of California, United States. Los Baños Creek has its source at the confluence of North Fork Los Banos Creek and South Fork Los Banos Creek. It flows northeast to the west edge of Los Banos and then north to Mud Slough 2.5 miles (4 km) upstream from its confluence with the San Joaquin River.
Ortigalita Creek, formerly Arroyo de Las Ortigalito is a tributary stream of the San Joaquin River, in Merced County, California. The source of Ortigalita Creek is at 3,520 ft (1,070 m) located near a peak on the Ortigalita Ridge of the Diablo Range. Its mouth is 7.2 mi (11.6 km) south southwest of Los Banos, California just as it emerges from the foothills before it reaches the California Aqueduct. Originally in years of heavy winter rainfall it may have reached the vicinity of the Mud Slough of the San Joaquin River.
Pacheco Creek is a 28 miles (45 km) west by southwest flowing stream which heads in the Diablo Range in southeastern Santa Clara County and flows to San Felipe Lake, the beginning of the Pajaro River mainstem, in San Benito County, California.
La Vereda del Monte was a backcountry route through remote regions of the Diablo Range, one of the California Coast Ranges. La Vereda del Monte was the upper part of La Vereda Caballo,, used by mesteñeros from the early 1840s to drive Alta California horses to Sonora for sale.
Fifield Ranch is a locale within the Diablo Range in Santa Clara County, California. It lies at an elevation of 1,512 feet, west of the head of Romero Creek and the Santa Clara County line, about a mile north of Hagerman Peak. It is at the source of a tributary canyon and stream to Chimney Gulch, itself a tributary of East Fork Pacheco Creek.
Cottonwood Creek is a southeastward-flowing 4 mi (6.4 km) tributary stream of San Luis Creek, originating in the eastern foothills of the Diablo Range in Merced County, California. The creek's mouth, before the San Luis Dam was built across the course of San Luis Creek, was originally at its confluence with San Luis Creek at approximately 250 ft (76 m). Today, Cottonwood Creek enters San Luis Reservoir, which raises the elevation of the creek's mouth to 548 ft (167 m), where it becomes Cottonwood Bay on the north side of the reservoir. The source of the creek is at Red Hill, a summit on the eastern slope of the Diablo Range.
