Waterwheel Falls

Waterwheel Falls is the final and tallest of the five major, named waterfalls along the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne. The falls drop about 360 feet over a run of about 1,000 feet. Its possible there may actually be two or three distinct steps to the falls, but there are so few pictures around the internet which adequately illustrate the structure of the falls that having not visited the falls in person we just don't know for sure.Le Conte Falls, located just upstream of Waterwheel Falls is often confused for this waterfall as it too possesses several noteworthy waterwheels as it slides down the smooth granite in Tuolumne Canyon, and this in part stems from several mapping errors during the latter 19th century. Waterwheel Falls was discovered by Josiah Whitney in 1874 and originally named Rocket Cascade, but as it was never mapped as such the name never took hold. In 1895 R.M. Price visited and mapped the falls, naming it Le Conte Cascade. This naming convention appeared on several maps of the Tuolumne Canyon area but none apparently by the USGS. The falls were not named on the 1910 30-minute quadrangle. By 1911 the name Waterwheel Falls was in common use.