Do You Think You Know the Highest Waterfall in Yosemite Valley? You Could Be Wrong!

Quick quiz: What is the name of this waterfall?

What is the highest waterfall in Yosemite Valley? Depending on the parameters one can use to determine "height", your assumption may be wrong! Most "authorities" recognize Yosemite Falls (2,425 feet/739 meters) as the highest in Yosemite Valley and North America, and somewhere around the fifth or seventh highest in the world. But it depends on how you decide to measure waterfalls. By a different metric, Yosemite Falls isn't even the highest waterfall in Yosemite Valley. It's the word "falls", in the plural, that makes the difference.

I was in Yosemite Valley yesterday, and the falls were flowing strong. There is no doubt that Yosemite Falls is one of the most stunning sights on the planet. A chance movement of a glacier 13,000 years ago forced a middling stream from its old channel to the left of the current waterfall, forcing Yosemite Creek to drop right off the edge of the sheer cliff. You can see the old channel almost hidden in the shadows in the photo above.

The fall makes a sheer plunge of 1,430 feet (440 meters) at the Upper Fall and then cascades through a series of steep ledges called the Middle Cascades for 675 feet (206 meters). There is a final drop of 320 feet (98 meters) at Lower Yosemite Fall. The Middle Cascades are generally hidden from view unless you hike the steep trail up to the top of the falls (below).

Part of the Middle Cascades (April 2003)

But if one decides to be a purist about such things, one can define a waterfall's height on the basis of the greatest freefall. By that metric, Yosemite Falls still is an imposing 1,425 feet (739 meters) high. But it also means it's not even the tallest waterfall in Yosemite Valley.

Many first-time visitors to the valley are drawn to Bridalveil Falls (620 feet/189 meters) because it is the first major waterfall visible as one enters the valley. But when standing at the base of Bridalveil, they may see another high waterfall across the valley west of the sheer cliff of El Capitan and wonder if it is Yosemite Falls. It's not. It's called Ribbon Fall, and it has a single drop of 1,612 feet (491 meters). That's nearly 200 feet higher than Upper Yosemite Falls (it's the one in the picture at the top of the post). It is less familiar than many of the other waterfalls because it is usually dry by June when the majority of people visit the park. But if you get the privilege of seeing by visiting in the spring, you are in for a treat.

Ribbon Fall (1,612 feet) to the left with the 2,900 foot cliff of El Capitan to the right

Ribbon Falls is one of many treasures that make a spring visit to Yosemite Valley a worthwhile endeavor. If you want to see another springtime waterfall over a thousand feet high, check out Sentinel Falls.

The Way it Was Today: Spring is About to Burst Forth in Yosemite Valley

In certain ways, I am the luckiest of people. I live in a place, however humble, that is a mere two-hour drive from Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park. I can visit and explore the park almost any time I want to, and I do so as often as I can. This is a privilege that I could never take for granted. It's just to precious to me.

A related form of luckiness is that I am a teacher, a professor of geology. That means that I have also been granted the wonderful privilege of introducing Yosemite to my students, a great many of whom have never visited the park despite their proximity. That's what I got to do today, teaching a field course on the geology of Yosemite National Park. Among the students on the trip, there were half a dozen who had never ever laid eyes on the park. The sparkling clear spring day did not disappoint.

We started our exploration of the valley with the glorious panorama from Tunnel View (top photo). We could see El Capitan, Half Dome, Sentinel Rock, the Cathedral Rocks, and Bridalveil Falls. It is hard to imagine another place in the world with such imposing cliffs and towers in such a small confined valley. We talked about the discovery of the valley by people, both thousands of years ago, and in the last 170 years by the usurpers and colonizers of this incredible landscape.

We then drove to the parking area on the valley floor where we could look at El Capitan in one direction, and Cathedral Rocks and Bridalveil Falls in the other. We were able to talk about hanging valleys in the presence of one of the greatest examples in the world. We also talked about how Yosemite Falls the 5th or 7th highest in the world, and yet is not even the tallest waterfall in Yosemite Valley.

Ribbon Falls at Yosemite Valley

Yosemite Falls is certainly a spectacular sight, but to purists of such things, it is actually three waterfalls, an upper fall with a height of 1,425 feet, a middle cascades section with a drop of more than 700 feet, and a lower drop of 320 feet. There is another waterfall in Yosemite that is 200 feet higher than upper Yosemite Falls. It's called Ribbon Fall and it falls over the cliff to the west of El Capitan. It is not as well-known as Yosemite Falls because it is usually dry by the early summer when most tourists come to visit.

Just the same, Yosemite Falls is a true treasure, leaping from a sheer cliff and impacting on the rocks below. It's the 'accidental' waterfall of Yosemite Valley. Yosemite Creek once flowed down the steep channel to the left of the present-day falls, but the course of the creek was reconfigured by the movement of glaciers across the mouth of the older creek, forcing the river to find a new path over the brink of the cliff.

The vantage point offered a peek-a-boo of Half Dome. This iconic monolith towers nearly 5,000 over the valley floor. It is the product of several processes acting in concert. The first is unloading, the release of pressure by being brought to the surface of the earth. The rock expands just a bit, but then fractures. Vertical fractures are called joints, and jointing is the explanation for the steep face of the dome.

The second form of fracturing is called exfoliation, a process by which the rocks split into slabs that are parallel to the surface of the rock. This has the effect of removing corners and edges, leading to the shaping of the dome..

That is the gist of our day, but more than anything else, I wanted to share the images of the day with all those who can't easily get there. It was a stunning day in the falley.

Do You Know the Tallest Waterfall in Yosemite Valley? You Might Be Wrong!

Quick quiz: What is the name of this waterfall?

What is the highest waterfall in Yosemite Valley? Depending on the parameters one can use to determine "height", your assumption may be wrong! Most "authorities" recognize Yosemite Falls (2,425 feet/739 meters) as the highest in Yosemite Valley and North America, and somewhere around the fifth or seventh highest in the world. But it depends how you decide to measure waterfalls. By a different metric, Yosemite Falls aren't even the highest waterfalls in Yosemite Valley. It's the word "waterfalls", in the plural, that makes the difference.

There is no doubt that Yosemite Falls is one of the most stunning sights on the planet. A chance movement of a glacier 13,000 years ago forced a middling stream from its old channel to the left of the current waterfall, forcing Yosemite Creek to drop right off the edge of the sheer cliff. You can see the old channel almost hidden in the shadows in the photo above.

The fall makes a sheer plunge of 1,430 feet (440 meters) at the Upper Fall and then cascades through a series of steep ledges called the Middle Cascades for 675 feet (206 meters). There is a final drop of 320 feet (98 meters) at Lower Yosemite Fall. The Middle Cascades are generally hidden from view unless you hike the steep trail up to the top of the falls (below).

Part of the Middle Cascades (April 2003)

But if one decides to be a purist about such things, one can define a waterfall's height on the basis of the greatest freefall. By that metric, Yosemite Falls still is an imposing 1,425 feet (739 meters) high. But it also means it's not even the tallest waterfall in Yosemite Valley.

Many first-time visitors to the valley are drawn to Bridalveil Falls (620 feet/189 meters) because it is the first major waterfall visible as one enters the valley. But when standing at the base of Bridalveil, they see another high waterfall across the valley and wonder if it is Yosemite Falls. It's not. It's called Ribbon Fall, and it has a single drop of 1,612 feet (491 meters). That's nearly 200 feet higher than Upper Yosemite Falls (it's the one in the picture at the top of the post). It is less familiar than many of the other waterfalls because it is usually dry by June when the majority of people visit the park. But if you get the privilege of seeing by visiting in the spring, you are in for a treat.

I have been trying to get a particular picture of Ribbon Fall for a long time. When driving towards the Tunnel View parking lot from Bridalveil Falls, there is a panorama of Ribbon Falls and the cliff of El Capitan, but there is no way to stop or pull out to get the shot, and the road is too narrow for walking. But yesterday I was there with my students in a bus. Since I wasn't driving, I was ready with the camera as we came back down the road, and I finally got it (below).

Ribbon Falls is one of many treasures that make a spring visit to Yosemite Valley a worthwhile effort.

Yosemite's Waterfall Riches: When the Junior Varsity Team Outdoes Everyone Else's Varsity

Ribbon Falls (1,612 feet) just west of El Capitan. The colorful red trees aren't fall colors; they're conifers killed by California's extended drought.

You wouldn't know it from the fine physique I carry around on my middle, but I once had an exciting career in high school track and field, and also cross-country running. I was even one leg of a relay race against a relay team with Steve Scott, one of America's greatest milers (yes, our team lost). I learned a lot from that experience, the most important being that I was too lazy to be a world-class athlete, and too slow. But the other thing I learned was that some teams were so good that their junior varsity teams could beat any other varsity team in the district.

Which brings us to Yosemite Valley. I've been up to the park twice in the last month, but Mrs. Geotripper wasn't able to come along, so I didn't argue at all on Sunday when she said "Let's go". I wrote a recent blog showing off some of the beautiful waterfalls that made the valley famous ("Yosemite's Dance of the Seven Veils"), but this trip I was realizing that Yosemite's junior varsity waterfalls are as good as any other valley around. You might miss them if you visit in the summer, but they are stunning when you get a chance to see them.

Ribbon Fall

One of them has the greatest free-fall of any waterfall in the valley (and probably in the United States). Called Ribbon Fall, it drops 1,612 foot (491 meters). Because it is one of the first ones seen by visitors arriving in the valley (it's west of El Capitan near the entrance to the valley), it's often mistaken for Yosemite Falls. Yosemite Falls is technically a taller waterfall at 2,425 feet (739 meters), but it's broken into three parts with the Upper Falls having the greatest free-fall at 1,430 feet (440 meters). Ribbon is an incredible sight at this time of year, but it dries up quickly in the spring, as it has a very small watershed.

I showed off Sentinel Falls in the last post about Yosemite, but I got closer this time and got a picture from a different angle. The falls are on the south side of the valley near Sentinel Rock and drop 1,920 feet (590 m). 

Yosemite Falls (2,425 feet/739 meters) are of course the waterfall of Yosemite Valley, but few people notice that there is another fall visible in the same scene. If you look in the distance on the right, you can just make out Lehamite Falls (1,180 feet/360 m), the only waterfall in Yosemite that retains an original Ahwaneechee name ("Arrowwood Fall"). It's true that the falls are a bit less spectacular than others in the valley, but were it not for a quirk of the glaciers, Yosemite Falls would have been very similar in appearance to Lehamite. Yosemite Creek was diverted by a glacial moraine and forced to its present location on the sheer cliff.

Lehamite Falls (1,180 feet/360 m)

People who arrive at Yosemite by way of Highway 140 through the Merced River Gorge are treated to a pair of waterfalls, one that is hard to miss and another that is hard to find. Cascade Creek and Tamarack Creek join together a thousand or so feet above the river and form Cascade Falls, with a drop of about 500 feet or so. There is a pullout and a parking area, so this one is hard to miss. 

Cascade Falls

There is a slightly "off" interpretive sign at the falls. It doesn't make clear that these are the Cascades, and a map suggests that one might be standing under Wildcat Falls. I noticed the discrepancy and looked around, believe it or not, for the first time in 80+ visits to the park and tried to see Wildcat Falls (720 feet/219 meters). It wasn't that easy, but hidden off in the trees to the west was a multi-tiered waterfall. I didn't have time to see the grotto at the base, but I got the shot below of the biggest single drop.

Upper Wildcat Falls

One more easy-to-miss fall in the valley is Silver Strand. The reason is that it above and slightly behind the awe-struck visitors standing at Tunnel View, perhaps the most famous vista in the park. The fall drops 574 feet (175 m), and often completely freezes over in winter, becoming an ice fall.

Silver Strand was almost completely obscured by the low cloud deck on Sunday, so I've included a picture from our trip a week ago when the skies were clear.

Silver Strand falls in the sunlight (sort of)

Yosemite's waterfalls are without compare. There are many more that I didn't get pictures of last week, including the Widow's Tears (1,170 feet/360 m), Horsetail Falls (2,130 feet/650 m), Illilouette Fall (370 feet/110 m), Snow Creek Falls (2,140 feet/653 m), Nevada Fall (594-foot/181 m), Vernal Fall (317-foot/96.6 m), and the many unnamed falls and cascades that occur at this time of year. It's like they say, "when it rains (or snows), they pour"!

If These Cliffs Could Talk: The Cliffs of the Ah-wah-nee that Never Got Legends

Do you know these places? Would a place that has cliffs like these merit being declared a national park?

Thankfully, these rocky precipices are in a national park already. But these are not the iconic features that end up in the photo collections of the millions of tourists that visit this place every year. But these cliffs contribute to the awesome scenery by serving as the backdrop for some very famous rocks. They serve as the supporting chorus behind the hardrock band, so to speak. They are the unsung cliffs of Yosemite Valley (the Ah-wah-nee). As far as I know, few of these escarpments have a mythical legend that celebrates their existence.

If these cliffs of Yosemite Valley could talk, they would have something to say about my recent little miniseries on the most famous rocks that can be seen from the valley floor. They would say "but, none of these cliffs could be famous without the un-famous cliffs and slopes that lay between".

The first picture in this post has a waterfall that is usually dry by the time most tourists begin arriving in June or July. When it is running it is often mistaken for Yosemite Falls by first-time visitors (until they see Yosemite Falls anyway). It is Ribbon Falls, which is actually the waterfall at Yosemite with the greatest unbroken drop (1,612 feet; 491 meters). Compare that to Upper Yosemite Falls at 1,430 feet (436 meters). The total drop of the three steps of Yosemite Falls totals 2,425 feet (735 meters), making the better-known fall one of the top ten highest falls in the world. Ribbon is apparently 99th. But imagine if it were the only fall at Yosemite. How famous it would be! It doesn't always get noticed because it lies just west of the boldest cliff of El Capitan.

The cliff in the picture above is an unnamed spire in the vicinity of Sentinel Rock. Although the cliff is thousands of feet tall, it is less imposing than Sentinel because it is more highly jointed (fractured). The rocks have been darkened by lichens and staining and thus appear darker than most of the granite cliffs (fresh exposures from more recent rockfalls reveal the lighter rock).

The partly rounded rock on the left in the picture above is the familiar Leaning Tower, although the lean is not so prominent from this angle. The rugged cliffs on the right include Dewey, Crocker, and Stanford Points, but the cliffs have no particular name. Like the previous photo, the rocks are more highly jointed, resulting in a recessed cliff face with talus (slopes of fallen boulders) covering the lower portions.

To me, one of the most striking features of Yosemite Valley is the total non-cliff that lies just west of Ribbon Falls and El Capitan. Instead of a vertical precipice, the slope is almost entirely buried in talus from the constant collapse of what cliffs there are. The dark-colored plutonic rock is called, not too surprisingly, the Diorite of the Rockslides. It is the most highly jointed of all the rocks in Yosemite Valley.

The next picture is a familiar view to anyone who has visited Glacier Point. Yosemite Falls is apparent on the left, and the Royal Arches are partly visible on the right, but the cliffs in-between are less familiar, in part because of the intense jointing that has led to a less bold appearance. The deep cleft in the center of the photo is Indian Creek, and the crenelated cliffs to the left of the creek are called the Castle Cliffs.

Panorama Cliff appears in many photographs taken from the vicinity of the Ahwahnee Hotel, but few know the name. It forms the south wall of the Merced River canyon where it emerges from Little Yosemite Valley.

One would think that waterfalls thousands of feet high would get more attention, but these two are very seasonal, generally drying up by late May or early June. The one above is the Widow's Tears, a 1,170 foot high waterfall tucked into the cliffs near Crocker and Stanford Points west of Leaning Tower. It has been mistaken for and mislabeled as Silver Strand Fall, which is much shorter.

And finally, there is Sentinel Falls, a 1,920 ft (590 m) fall on the west flank of Sentinel Rock. Like the other less famous waterfalls, it is ephemeral, and often dry by early summer. The biggest drop among the many cascades is about 500 feet high.

Light and shadow. Positive and negative.Yin and yang.

Mrs. Geotripper, the artist, tells me that yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. That is what these cliffs accomplish at Yosemite Valley. For every bold cliff like El Capitan, Half Dome, or Sentinel Rock, there are recessed cliffs that lie in the shadows. Hidden among these recessed cliffs are beautiful waterfalls that during the right time of year rank as some of the world's highest and most dramatic. If we could just find them among the richness of features at Yosemite Valley!

One of the World's Most Precious Places, Under the Volcano

Yosemite Valley, hands down, is one of the most extraordinary places on our amazing planet. I have been going to Yosemite National Park three or four times a year for the last quarter century, and I never get tired of spending time there. The thousand square miles of national park that surround Yosemite Valley are incredible, but the valley itself is hypnotic. I would hope that everyone could visit the park at least once, but it becomes something special when you can see it throughout the seasons, in all the different moods of the place.

The mood in the park on Saturday was expectant. The snowmelt has been filling the rivers a little (the drought continues unabated), and the first hints of green are showing up in the meadows and oak woodlands on the valley floor. Snow still lingers in the high country. The Dogwoods are just hinting at the possibility of a bloom. Changes will be coming fast in the next few weeks (and the long dry spell of summer will begin soon; much sooner than we have hoped).

The valley is a showcase for learning about glacial features and glacial erosion, although several aspects of valley scenery are not anything like typical. But if the subject is hanging valleys, Yosemite has no peer.

Big glaciers carve deeper valleys than little glaciers. When the massive Merced River glacier joined the Tenaya Creek glacier (with its spillover of additional ice from the Tuolumne Meadows icecap), the combined force of the two ice rivers produced the deep trough of the main valley, 3,000 feet deep (even deeper if the sediments filling the valley floor are removed). The tributary glaciers in Yosemite and Bridalveil Creeks were much smaller and couldn't cut nearly as deep. Their valley floors were left hanging high above the main valley, and today high waterfalls spill over the edges. Bridalveil Fall (in the pictures above and below) is 620 feet high, nearly four times the height of Niagara Falls, but it's one of the smaller waterfalls in Yosemite Valley.

Yosemite Falls is usually described as the highest waterfall in Yosemite Valley, but that depends on which geographer one is arguing with. It has three sections, an upper fall with a drop of 1,425 feet, a cascading central section, and a final sheer drop of 300 feet. It may the fifth or the seventh highest water in the world, but if one is talking about essentially unbroken drops, it's not even the tallest waterfall in Yosemite Valley. That honor goes to Ribbon Fall, shown in the photo below. It drops 1,612 feet, nearly 200 feet more than the upper section of Yosemite Falls. I imagine some first-time visitors mistake it for Yosemite Falls as it is seen first during the drive into the valley. Most people never see it at all though, because it dries up by late spring in most years.

I started up the valley trail from Bridalveil Falls, and ended up with a new view I have not seen before. The trail winds along the base of the Cathedral Rocks, with a sheer precipice of thousands of feet. Being at the base of such high cliffs is awe-inspiring.

Half Dome gets all the attention, but North Dome is beautiful in its symmetry as well. It stands across from Half Dome on the other side of Tenaya Canyon. And it's a whole dome!

And then there is Yosemite Falls. It never fails to amaze me with its stunning drop of nearly half a mile, and it becomes even more amazing when one realizes that it is misplaced in a manner of speaking. Can you see the cleft in the shadows to the left of the waterfall? The cleft provides a route for the trail that climbs up to the top of the waterfall and nearby Yosemite Point.

The dark cleft used to be the path of Yosemite Creek! The falls used to be an inconsequential side canyon but the glacier coming south from the high country pushed up a moraine, a pile of glacial debris, and blocked the normal channel of the canyon. The stream's new pathway took it over the brink of the cliff.

I mentioned the term "under the volcano" in the title because when you stand in the bottom of Yosemite Valley, you are within the frozen magma chambers of a series of volcanoes that once existed here, just five miles or so above. There are eight or nine individual intrusions that make up the valley walls and different susceptibility to erosion has caused the formation of a series of reentrants and coves along with the bold battlements of cliffs like the Cathedral Rocks or El Capitan. Many glacial valleys have long monotonous walls that aren't nearly as appealing a place as Yosemite.

Yosemite is indeed one of the world's most precious places, and I am forever appreciative of living nearby, and being able to share it with you. Enjoy!

A Spring Day in Yosemite: Celebrating the Unsung Waterfalls

Springtime in Yosemite! I was there on Sunday, and witnessed the valley at one of the most beautiful times of the year. In the last post, I concentrated on Yosemite's most famous waterfall, Yosemite Falls, especially the Upper Fall. Spring is also a great time to see some of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world that aren't really well known, including the actual highest waterfall in Yosemite Valley. That waterfall would be Ribbon Fall, which drops 1,612 feet, which is nearly 200 feet taller than Upper Yosemite Falls, which only drops 1,425 feet. Ribbon is not as famous because it has a small drainage and thus only flows for part of the year.

The other waterfalls are not well known because they are a bit difficult to see. Silver Strand Fall is a 574 foot fall that suffers because it is best seen from the Wawona Tunnel View, and 99% of the people who stop there are looking at one of the most famous panoramas in the national park system:

Yeah, that one...

Next time, after enjoying the incredible view of the valley, turn 90 degrees to your right, and look up...way up. If it is flowing, it is a pretty waterfall, though it is hard to get a shot with the sun shining on the cliff. Late afternoon probably is the best time to check it out.

I walked a stretch of trail that I have missed in the past, along the Merced River between the Horse Stables and Happy Isles. I looked up and saw a waterfall I've not seen from the valley floor before: 370 foot high Illilouette Fall. This first shot below gives an idea of how tricky it is to see...

Zooming in gives a better idea of the setting, but from this angle there is no clue to how interesting the fall is in a complete view. You have to hike about four miles from Glacier Point to see the best view. I haven't been there yet, but here is a nice shot from someone else.

If you get to Yosemite and you've seen the famous spots, I have a mission for you: find the unsung waterfalls. There are lots more to find: Sentinel, Royal Arch Cascades, Lehamite, Staircase, Horsetail, Widow's Tears, and more that I haven't found out about yet.

To wrap up, I'm tossing in a familiar fall looking a bit less familiar. The wind was blowing across the top of Bridalveil, making the fall look twice as wide as it actually is.

Yosemite is a wonderful place....