Kerepakupai Merú

Kerepakupai Merú or Parekupa Vena are indigenous Pemon Indian language names for this waterfall, but virtually everywhere else on earth it is famously known as Salto Angel, or Angel Falls. Located along the Río Gauja as it flows from the sandstone plateau-mountain Auyan Tepui, the largest of many Tepuis in Canaima National Park in the southeastern part of Venezuela, the falls funnel into a sinkhole at the edge of the mountain and burst forth from the side of the cliff about 30-40 meters below the rim, plunging a sheer 807 meters (2,648 feet) into the massive canyon below and forming the tallest uninterrupted waterfall on earth. The drop is so far that despite the large volume of water which can be present, by the time the river reaches the floor of the canyon it has vaporized into a huge column of fine mist. From the base of the cliff, all this mist percolates through rocks and the river quickly re-forms and cascades further down the valley. Despite a long standing precedent that has seen Angel Falls considered to be the tallest waterfall on earth, it is all but certain that it is not as tall as is typically reported. The falls were first surveyed in 1949 by an expedition funded by National Geographic and led by American journalist Ruth Robertson, and during this expedition the height of the falls was determined to be 979 meters (3,212 feet). The question of the accuracy of this measurement comes based on two factors: photographs from the expedition that clearly illustrate the survey equipment being trained on the falls from the shores of the Rio Caroni, nearly 2 kilometers distant from the base of the falls, and rough topographic data from Google Earth which shows the difference in elevation between the top of Auyan Tepui and the Rio Caroni to be just over 1,000 meters (3,300 feet). In fact, the article which was published in National Geographic confirms that the measurement which was made accounts for the total elevation change between the top of Auyan Tepui and the bank of the Rio Caroni, so this immediately confirms that the measure of 979 meters is wholly invalid. Additionally, not only is is exceedingly unlikely that the Rio Gauja only loses 180 meters in elevation between the base of the waterfall and the Rio Caroni, but also that aside from a 30-40 meter fall which is located approximately 400 linear meters downstream from the main drop (and due to the separation in linear distance, should be considered an entirely separate and distinct waterfall), there do not appear to be any other bedrock-based waterfalls or cascades along the Rio Gauja which could account for an additional 170 meters of height, so even if the measurement from the expedition proves to be entirely accurate, it isn't an accurate measure of the height of what could be considered the extremes of the waterfall itself. In summation, Angel Falls is not in fact the tallest waterfall in the world, and its height should only be considered to be that of the primary leap of 807 meters. How accurate the measurement of 807 meters is is not clear, but we have yet to see any evidence to suggest it isn't at least relatively accurate. It is not known whether any additional efforts to survey the falls have taken place since 1949.Kerepakupai Merú, or Parekupa-vena are the proper names given to Angel Falls by the indigenous Pemon Indians. The name Angel Falls, as the world knows it, was bestowed upon the falls after James Angel, a bush pilot who crash-landed his plane on the mountain above the falls in November of 1933 while conducting aerial prospecting surveys in the area. The falls were, however, first seen by a non-native in 1912 when Venezuelan explorer Ernesto Sanchez la Cruz stumbled upon the fall. His name is not often attached with the waterfalls because he did not seek to publicize his find. The name Churún Merú is often incorrectly attributed to Kerepakupai Merú as well - this was at one point thought to be the Pemon name for Angel Falls, when in reality it applies to an entirely different waterfall located approximately 6 kilometers further to the south.