The Waterfalls of Yosemite Valley
The Waterfalls of Yosemite Valley
Don Bain's Waterfalls of Western North America
Popular culture holds many images of California - palm trees and beaches, Hollywood film studios and premieres, the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, drive-through trees - and waterfall-bedecked Yosemite Valley.
The spectacular scenery of Yosemite would be famous just for its cliffs, forests and meadows, but the waterfalls give it life, movement, and special interest. People are strongly drawn to the falls, to take pictures and have their picture taken. They clamber to the bases, hike to the tops, swim in the pools at the bottom, and are swept to their deaths over the giddying drops. If this national park were a man-made theme park, the theme would be "waterfalls".
Nowhere else in the world is there such a concentration of major waterfalls. Ribbon and Upper Yosemite rank among the world's highest, Bridalveil, Yosemite, and Vernal among the best known. From almost any point on the valley floor one can see at least one waterfall. From Sierra Point one can see four major and several minor falls. In springtime of a year with abundant snowfall there are dozens of ephemeral falls, some of prodigous height -- El Capitan Falls drops 1400 feet and often blows entirely away before reaching the bottom. Some falls, such as Cascade and Silver Strand, which would be famous anywhere else, are hardly mentioned in the guidebooks, while others, such as Snow Creek, are so difficult of access that almost no-one ever sees them. Staircase Falls is so lost against the immensity of the cliffs at Glacier Point that people who suddenly discern it feel they have made a personal discovery.
Table of Contents
Upper Yosemite Falls
Lower Yosemite Falls
Nevada Falls
Vernal Falls
Illilouette Falls
Bridalveil Falls
Ribbon Falls
Silver Strand Falls
This page is maintained by G. Donald Bain (dbain@socrates.berkeley.edu). All photographs copyright by the author.
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