Swimming under Vernal Falls

I know a lot of you think its dangerous, stupid, or plain senseless to swim under vernal falls, but after making the very short detour down there, I couldnt resist. There is also a 15 foot rock jump. Just be smart, safe, aware of your surroundings, and extremely cautious, and its all in a days fun. Although I dont know about the one guy climbing the slick rock directly below the falls, that is some.thing I would not do (see second to last photo for him). I will say I did see some people who appeared to have thought they were swimming in their backyard. They seemed to have no care of their surroundings, freely climbing, jumping, and swimming wherever. I saw kids maybe 9 or 10 swimming alone, with no supervision....Again just be smart, safe, aware of your surroundings, and extremely cautious. This is the only time you can get down here.

In absolute awe



Rock jump to the right of photo



Guy swimming toward the fall...



He went over another 20 feet or so, directly below the falls. His head was red from the water hitting him afterward



There at least 30-50 people who stopped down there, lucky I was tucked away from most of them, so there were probably more, a lot more I did not see.

The pictures are beautiful and inviting.

I have done far worse, but that was when I was younger and oblivious to my impending mortality.

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The body betrays and the weather conspires, hopefully, not on the same day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2013 09:30PM by Bee.

I was going to note, that we've all probably done much more dangerous things. It was rather safe actually.

I haven't noticed much wood or other debris going over Vernal Fall. If there ever were any, though, I wouldn't want to be under it when it came down.

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gophersnake

I haven't noticed much wood or other debris going over Vernal Fall. If there ever were any, though, I wouldn't want to be under it when it came down.

That's more likely to occur after a winter storm (or other high wind events) or other periods of high water flow (like during the annual spring runoff).

It's less likely during the late summer, early autumn timeframe when the water flow is minimal and wind storms infrequent.

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