Bridalveil Falls 2015

14 May

Bridalveil Falls

Photographer: David Maynard Catagory: Yosemite Valley

Spring brings new life to the waterfalls!

Plunging 620 feet (189 meters), Bridalveil Fall is the first waterfall you'll see when entering Yosemite Valley. In spring, it thunders and roars among the trees, boulders, and paths surounding the falls.

As summer arrives the falls subside and become a gentle flow swaying and bending with the winds that flow through valley. Often the winds blow the falls into a lovely, delicate, and ethereal Bridalveil shape. Watch for rainbows in its mists during the summer.

When winter arrives the wind carries and freezes the mist forming wondrous shapes of snow and ice lining the rock walls near the falls. These beautiful constructs of delicate ice continuously break off plunging to the base of the falls forming a delightful giant snow cone into which the falling water hollows out and disappears.

Bridalveil Falls in not in the largest of Yosemite's many water falls, but what it lacks in height, it more than makes up for in graceful beauty.

You will want to stop on your way into the valley or the way out of the valley due to it being the first attraction on the one way Southside drive. It has a relatively small parking lot but if full can be accessed from Southside drive parking turn outs just in front of the falls.

You can also hike to it from the Valley Loop Trail. Sadly, the free shuttle does not travel so far into the west end of the valley. So you will need to drive, hike, or bike to this marvelous waterfall.