[Sierra Club Bulletin, May 1895] [photo: unknown]"
The description does not sound right to me. I was thinking about trying to correct the record, but I am not an expert. What say you?
![](http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/sierra_names1/waterwheelfalls.jpg)
Water Wheel / Le Conte / California Falls June 17, 2011 08:42PM | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 190 |
June 17, 2011 09:07PM | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 398 |
June 17, 2011 10:33PM | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 16 |
Re: Water Wheel / Le Conte / California Falls June 18, 2011 08:57PM | Registered: 14 years ago Posts: 1,736 |
Are you saying that to get to Waterwheel falls, you have to go through those lakes? I thought there was a trail?Quote
mark2
That's the upper section of Waterwheel Falls, a mile or so below La Conte Falls, which itself is just downstream from California Falls. It's a wonderful thing to see, but when it's flooding in spring time, just making your way through the canyon is a series of lakes that have to be navigated, sometimes from log to log, and rock to rock. It's too much work if you have a backpack on your back until the snow melts and the water lowers. At the end of day and half way through the night the water rises as the melted snow from that day gets moving and makes its way from upstream, places like Llyle Canyon, far up stream. Then, by morning the water has slowed down again. Leave anything near the high water mark when you go to sleep and it might be gone in the morning as the water rises and then falls. It's also a wind tunnel, as the warm air from the lower valleys come up into the high country, as the heat invesion kicks in later in the day and then that evening. I love Waterwheel Falls. Once you make it to the bottom though, it's a lot of hiking to get back up. My first backpacking trip was in that area when I was 14 years old, camping with my brother and his friends, almost fifty years ago.
June 18, 2011 11:39PM | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 670 |
June 18, 2011 12:39AM | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 670 |
Re: Water Wheel / Le Conte / California Falls June 18, 2011 04:42PM | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 190 |
Quote
qumqats
That's not below Le Conte, that IS LeConte. It's a completly seperate waterfall that's not very near Waterwheel.
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I can't say what the falls along that section of the Tuolumne used to be called.
This map makes it pretty clear, what was named what, when the map was made.
Tuolumne, California, Le Conte, Waterwheel Falls: topo map
The quote "Waterwheel Falls, formerly Le Conte Falls and sometimes called California Falls" makes no sense. "Waterwheel", "Le Conte", and "California" are each seperate waterfalls. Or was there a bunch of confusion and renaming of things at one point before the maps were made?
June 19, 2011 06:22PM | Registered: 14 years ago Posts: 7,421 |
Re: Water Wheel / Le Conte / California Falls June 19, 2011 09:58PM | Registered: 14 years ago Posts: 864 |
Re: Water Wheel / Le Conte / California Falls June 19, 2011 01:14PM | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 23 |
Re: Water Wheel / Le Conte / California Falls June 19, 2011 02:01PM | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 384 |