Foresta Falls

From the Arch Rock entrance to Yosemite National Park, head east along Highway 140 to the junction with Highway 120 (Big Oak Flat Road) and turn left (uphill) towards Tioga Pass. After 3.4 miles turn left onto Foresta Road (this is two-thirds of a mile past the west entrance to the third tunnel along the Big Oak Flat Road). Follow Foresta Road for 2 1/2 miles, staying left at the fork, to just beyond the end of the pavement and park in the large dirt pullout (the road is sometimes closed at this point). Walk down the road for a few hundred feet to where the falls should be audible and look for paths leading down to the creek at the base of the upper falls. To reach the lower tier of the falls, walk along the road for about half of a mile to the bridge over Crane Creek at the foot of the falls. If the road is open, you can drive down to the bridge, but the road is considerably rougher beyond the main parking area and there is little to no room to safely pull off and park when viewing the lower falls.Foresta Falls is a pretty but often overlooked waterfall found just barely inside the western boundary of Yosemite National Park near the tiny hamlet of Foresta. The falls consist of a series of slides and horsetails in Crane Creek over a run of about 800 linear feet, but much of this distance is made up in pools between the drops. The uppermost falls is a two-stepped sliding cascade which drops into a nice swimming hole. Below here are several more sliding cascades of a more gradual nature, and then the falls culminate in a scenic 45-foot tall veiling horsetail. Because of the distance involved between the uppermost and lower tiers of the falls, we may eventually revisit this entry and split it into two entries since the gradient of the creek between these two drops is not nearly as steep as at the top and bottom of the falls. Crane Creek is partially fed by several springs in the vicinity of Crane Flat, so the stream retains a consistent volume of water throughout the year, but like most streams in Yosemite, its volume will diminish substantially by the late summer months and is best between April and July.