By Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle
04.07.11
It's a simple formula involving gravity + water.
In Yosemite National Park, that uncomplicated phenomenon is captured every year by some 4 million camera-clicking tourists who angle to see melted snow cascade over granite cliffs in frothy free falls that land with an incessant bellow in the valley below.
The 2,425-foot Yosemite Falls, the tallest in North America, might be the main attraction, but there are waterfalls within the park to please any poet. Down Nevada Fall, the water runs at times transparent over smooth, sloping rocks, while the droplets within Bridalveil Falls dance around in rainbows.
As good as the falling water shows are at Yosemite in any given year, this year is expected to be even better.
Perhaps twice as good.
With a near-record snowpack waiting for its moment in the spring sun, there will be nearly double the amount of water falling over the national park's granite walls compared with most years.
"We're going to have a huge waterfall year," Yosemite National Park ranger Scott Gediman said.
Surveys over the past few days measured the snowpack at an average 185 percent of normal, with a whopping 203 percent of normal at Gin Flat in the Merced River basin, where the water collects before falling over one of those Yosemite Valley cliffs.
"It's up there," said Maury Ross, a hydrologist for the Department of Water Resources, speaking of the frozen water. "This (season) really ought to be superb."
The falls are flowing
"It is beautiful. Outstanding. Awesome," said Annette Cleveland, an Orange County visitor who spent Monday morning sitting on a bench across from Yosemite Falls.
The sound, she said, was "breathtaking," a steady roar punctuated by vibrating crashes when chunks of ice broke off from the cliffs.
"Everywhere you turn, there's water coming down the mountain," she said.
In a normal year, peak flow occurs in late May, when about 2,200 gallons of water per second roll over Yosemite Falls.
As the warm weather began melting the huge snowpack this week, the park's waterfalls were looking more like it was May than early April. At the base of Yosemite Falls, a thick mist drenched those who wandered near.
But even with all the snow, it won't last forever.
The park's namesake waterfall typically dries up around August.
This year, with so much snow stored in the high country, the falls will probably be bigger and could last longer, depending on the weather, but not much longer, Gediman said.
Parched granite
Just like always, the falls will be replaced with parched granite by late summer, and Gediman will be left having to point out to disappointed tourists where the falls used to be.
"I feel badly," he said. "Just like people want to ride the cable cars or see Fisherman's Wharf, they want to see Half Dome, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls."
Other Yosemite waterfalls - Vernal, Nevada, Wapama, Rancheria, Horsetail, Chilnuaina, Tueeulaia and Sentinel falls - flow all year long, although the last week of May typically is the peak time for them.
But just what is so alluring about water falling?
"I think there's something magical about water that plunges 2,400 feet off a cliff and is fine," Yosemite park ranger Kari Cobb said. "What else can do that?"
Some folks make the 14-mile, round-trip hike from O'Shaughnessy Dam to see the "very pretty" Rancheria Falls, Cobb said.
It's a lovely hike, albeit one that can be brutally hot and frustrating given that the Hetch Hetchy water is what folks drink back in Bay Area - and it's off-limits for swimming, she said.
Still, a steady stream of hikers makes the uphill trek to see it, Cobb said.
"Water, in general, whether it's plunging off a cliff or meandering through a meadow is mystifying," she said. "It's peaceful."
Bay Area falls
Yosemite National Park is a waterfall mecca, but the Bay Area also is home to several falls in its local, state and federal parks. They include:
