Tueeulala Falls

Tueeulala Falls is found in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of Yosemite National Park. From Groveland take Highway 120 east for just over 22 miles, or from the Big Oak Flat entrance station to Yosemite National Park go west for one mile, to Evergreen Road and turn north, following signs pointing to Hetch Hetchy. Follow the road for 10 miles to Camp Mather, then turn right at the T-intersection - still following the signs - for another 6 miles to the parking area at the O'Shaughnessey Dam. The bottom of Wapama Falls can be seen in tandem with Tueeulala (if it's flowing) from the dam over a mile and a half distant. Closer views require a moderately easy hike which begins by crossing the dam and heading through a tunnel blasted through the cliff. About a mile in to the hike, head right at the junction and continue another nine-tenths of a mile to the small wooden footbridge which spans Tueeulala's stream where the falls (or a dry cliff as it may be) can be seen above.Tueeulala Falls is one of two major waterfalls in the Hetch Hetchy Valley which can be seen from the Hetch Hetchy Dam. The USGS has marked the falls as occurring along an unnamed seasonal stream about half of a mile west of Wapama Falls but this is incorrect. Tueeulala Falls actually occurs along a seasonal channel of Falls Creek, the main portion of which produces Wapama Falls just to the east. When Falls Creek is swollen with snow melt, some of the excessive volume of the creek spills into a second channel about a quarter mile upstream of the top of Wapama Falls. This second channel runs for approximately 3/4 of a mile to the southwest where it then turns south and plunges a nearly sheer 880 feet over the sheer cliff to the west of Wapama Falls. Because Tueeulala Falls is fed solely by Falls Creek, one of the largest tributaries of the Tuolumne River, it's seasonal characteristics behave quite differently than an independently fed stream. Falls Creek can swell to immense size in the spring that large quantities of water can spill into the Tueeulala Falls channel, allowing it to turn into one of Yosemite's more powerful waterfalls. However, as the snow melt subsides and the volume of Falls Creek drops, Tueeulala Falls will diminish in flow faster than practically any other major waterfall in the park. In most years the falls are dry by July but they have been known to flow through July during years with exceptionally heavy snow, and dry out entirely by the end of May in low snow years. Both Tueeulala Falls and Wapama Falls have been said to have been truncated by the construction of the O'Shaughnessey Dam and Hetch Hetchy Lake. While it is certainly true that the lake flooded portions of Falls Creek below each of these waterfalls, neither Tueeulala Falls nor Wapama Falls were altered or shortened in any way by the construction of the dam. Estimates of the height of the falls have often stretched as high as 1,200 feet but this is simply a gross exaggeration. Topographic data is pretty clear on the height of the falls being between 850 and 900 feet.Hetch Hetchy Valley is said to have been discovered by westerners in 1850 by a hunter named Nathaniel Screech (some sources credit discovery to his brother Joseph), though Native Americans had used the valley for summer hunting and gathering grounds for perhaps 5000 years prior. Tueeulala is a name from the Miwok Indians, but the meaning of the word is not immediately clear. John Muir made considerable and very favorable notes about Tueeulala Falls in his book "The Yosemite" after his visit in 1871, so the name was recognized and in use prior to that at the least.