California
Waterwheel Falls
84 mi from Fresno · ~2.4 hr drive
No height recorded
Waterwheel Falls is a named waterfall in California — about 84 miles from Fresno, CA. Full visit details below.
- State
- California
- Nearest city
- Fresno, CA · 84 mi · ~2.4 hr drive
- Elevation
- 6,795 ft (2071 m)
- Coordinates
- 37.9272°, -119.4588°
From Wikipedia: Waterwheel Falls is a waterfall in the Sierra Nevada of California, located in Yosemite National Park. It is the largest of the many waterfalls of the Tuolumne River. Its upper part contains a series of small ledges, each of which creates a small plume as the water is deflected away from the rock face. A regular phenomenon appears at the first and largest of these ledges during the high-water season of early summer. Strong gusts of wind can lift part of the spray and blow it back upward, causing it to reenter the falls above the ledge. This cyclic "waterwheel" gives the falls their name. Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Waterwheel Falls, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Visiting Waterwheel Falls
The exact location is at 37.9272°, -119.4588° — open in Google Maps for driving directions from your location.
Before you go: check current conditions with the appropriate land manager — state parks department, U.S. Forest Service ranger district, or National Park Service unit. Trail access, parking, water levels, and seasonal closures all vary. Several waterfalls in our database are seasonal and may run dry between mid-summer and the next rainy season.
If you've visited Waterwheel Falls and have current notes (parking situation, dog policy, seasonality, kid-friendliness), tell us at /contact — we update pages as we learn more.
Stay nearby
Driving in? The nearest documented metro is Fresno, CA — 84 miles away (~2.4 hr drive).
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Other waterfalls within 30 miles
Sources
Location and tag data for Waterwheel Falls comes from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL license) ; the Wikipedia article linked above provides additional history. We do not modify the underlying data — this page presents what's already publicly recorded. To suggest corrections, see our methodology page or contact us.