Hiking Bridalveil Falls in Yosemite National Park: The Fast Food Waterfall
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Day Tripping in Yosemite? Resting after a big hike? Bridalveil Falls is one of Yosemite’s best roadside attractions, especially on a hot Summer’s day.
Hiking to Bridalveil Falls can be a slippery experience. The path is short and easy, but you’re gonna get wet. As soon as Bridalveil Creek hits the valley rim, it’s roaring flow is atomized into big clouds, filling it’s amphitheater with rain. All that water envelops hikers, cooling them down, and soaking them to the bone.
Needless to say, visiting Bridalveil Falls is a sure place to catch wet clothes, and runny makeup. As with Lower Yosemite Falls, bring a rain jacket. It’s a waterpark out there.
The “Hike” to Bridalveil Falls barely qualifies as such. From the Parking Lot, a short, two minute walk along a well paved path takes you up to the base of the falls. You’ll pass by roaring, rocky rapids, lined by a convenient handrail to stabilize the weary walkers. Other visitors, passing opposite, will be drenched and dripping. They herald what is to come.
Stats and Things
Distance: A Few Hundred Yards.
Difficulty: The Easiest.
Time To Hike: About 5 minutes.
Elevation Gain: 40 feet from the parking lot.
How High?: 617 Feet.
Best Time of Year to Hike: All year, but springtime is when you can catch the best spray.
Who’s it for?: Visitors who want to see Yosemite’s beauty up close, but are not interested in big hikes.
Phone Booths?: Yep.
Bathrooms?: Yes, but you’ll be waiting to do your business
The Trail (Actually, It’s More of a Path)
It won’t take you long to walk the path up to the base of the falls. Judging by the crowd I encountered during my visit, everyone and their literal grandmas had no trouble with Bridalveil’s path. The end of your hike rewards you with ample opportunity for epic photo shoots. Can you say Instagram Influencer?
Instant Gratification, Instantly Soaked
Yosemite Valley packs in many of mother nature’s grand designs. The big cliffs and waterfalls are its signature. Staring high up, craning your neck at all the crowds and trees makes anyone feel like a kid in a candy store. You grow giddy at the sights.
Not all folks want to strap on their boots to make the tough hike up a trail. Some are just visiting for a brief while, here just to take pictures and get on to other destinations. If that sort of visit fits your itinerary, then the Bridalveil Falls trail is practically made for you.
The Trail starts a mere few minutes down the road from the famous Tunnel View. In the space of an hour, visitors can combine these two spots to make for an awesome afternoon.
Not to seem disparaging, but Bridalveil Falls is like the Fast Food restaurant of waterfalls. It’s location beside the road allows visitors to pull in, grab a quick look, and continue onward. Not much effort or time is needed to fully enjoy Bridalveil Falls. Fast Food may not have the best reputation, but there’s no harm in indulging yourself every so often.
The Falls are named for Bridalveil Creek. A powerful flow of snow melt water, Bridalveil Creek originates from the high country far above Glacier Point Road. It descends thousands of feet to the valley, at once briefly displaying all of the power of a Yosemite waterfall. Shortly downstream, the creek joins the Merced River.
As a visitor to Yosemite Valley, you can now be the lucky recipient of some High Sierra Snow Melt water. All you need to do is park your car, and walk up an easy path.
The Bridalveil Phone Booth
The Bridalveil Falls parking lot is a living museum. No, I’m not talking about the midwestern Octogenarians. Here you’ll find a real life phone booth-a relic of a bygone era.
As of this writing, I’m at a weird age. In my mid 20’s, I’m just old enough to vaguely remember what life was like before the smartphone era, where social media is a dominant fixture in our lives. At the same time, I’m young enough to not recall how to use any more primitive tech. I can relate to both sides of the Zeitgeist-one foot in either century.
Bridalveil’s phone booth is there for emergencies, but who the heck even knows how to make a collect call anymore? It might better serve to switch into your superhero costume, or to whisk you off through time and space.
Etymology, Geology, and Other -Ologies
Many Anglo-American place names are commonly derived from an overused, narrow word bank. How many Springfields are in America? How about streets named called Maple? When it comes to cataracts, ‘Bridalveil’ has come to be the American default. A google autocomplete search proves it to be true-there might be one in every state (but probably not).
Telluride, Colorado’s Bridalveil Falls immediately comes to mind. New York/Canada’s Niagara Falls evidently plunges its own Bridalveil. Yosemite’s Bridalveil may not have been the first, but it’s the original in my mind.
Long before Yosemite ever became a National Park, the Ahwaneechee People called it home. To them, Bridalveil Falls was known as Pohono, meaning “Spirit of the Puffing Wind”. This name will make a lot more sense when you’re standing below the Falls, and gusts of wet spray are making you question whether you’re in a National Park, or a Water Park.
One quick Geography note. Bridalveil Creek, before it drops into Yosemite Valley, flows through a glacier carved U-shaped valley. Bridalveil Creek continues to carve downward,natural erosive forces will cause it’s valley will eventually become a V-Shaped river canyon. You can sort of see the process taking place before your eyes, if you squint hard and use your imagination. Geologic time has it that we will never see this process conclude on our human time scale, but it is a cool fact nonetheless.
Conclusion-Why You Should Hike Bridalveil Falls
Bridalveil Falls may not tout the distance or the difficulty of many other Yosemite Hikes, but it is a unique, inspiring waterfall-a small feature in a beautiful, one-of-a-kind place. Pulling into the parking lot, making the quick walk up to the falls, and getting drenched to the gills is a great experience to have, especially if you’re only in the park for a short while.
Related: Other easy day hikes in Yosemite include Mirror Lake, and Lower Yosemite Falls. For more waerfalls, check out The Mist Trail and Upper Yosemite Falls.
Need Gear?
Hiking Bridalveil Falls, as I’ve mentioned, is wet and slippery experience. Of all the gear that I’d bring along on a Yosemite day hike, wet suits and swim trunks are an appropriate addendum, if only for Bridalveil. For every other (much drier) hike, check out our list of Essential Day Hiking Gear. We’ve curated this list to pick out the best gear to make your hiking happy, fun, and safe.
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