Snow Creek Falls is a 755-foot chain of horsetails and cascades on Snow Creek in Yosemite National Park, California, pouring down the north wall of Tenaya Canyon above Mirror Lake. Few visitors see it well: the trail that climbs past it never shows the falls themselves.
The falls
Snow Creek, which rises at May Lake, drops into Tenaya Canyon in about 11 steps, and at high water its second tier throws the spray back up in a wheel like Waterwheel Falls in the Tuolumne canyon. A lidar measurement puts the total at 755 feet; earlier surveys listed 600 feet, and a figure of more than 2,000 feet is still widely quoted. Upper Snow Creek Falls, some 700 feet of cascades more than a third of a mile upstream, is counted as a separate waterfall.
Getting there
Take the valley shuttle to the Mirror Lake trailhead, stop 17. The falls are partly visible from the far end of the Mirror Lake loop. From there, the Snow Creek Trail climbs the canyon wall on more than 100 switchbacks to a footbridge over Snow Creek, with pools and cascades above the falls: 9.4 miles round trip from the trailhead with 2,700 feet of gain, six to seven hours. The park map notes that the waterfall itself cannot be seen from this trail.
Yosemite admission is $35 per vehicle for seven days, plus $100 per person for non-US residents aged 16 and older unless they hold an Annual or America the Beautiful Pass. No timed-entry reservation is required in 2026.
When to go
March through June has the most water. Snow Creek runs for about eight months of the year and is usually dry by the end of August. The Snow Creek Trail is open all year, but its lower section can be icy and snowy in winter.
On site
The Snow Creek Trail is hot and shadeless on summer afternoons, with loose sand and rock underfoot, drop-offs and rattlesnakes. Do not try to reach the falls through Tenaya Canyon: the park map warns that hiking there is dangerous, and hikers who left the trail have been trapped above cliffs and needed rescue, as two did in 2012.
History and name
The falls were named Snow Creek Falls in or before 1896 and have also been called Dome Cascade.
Nearby
Upper Snow Creek Falls is about 0.4 mile away, Tenaya Falls about 0.5 mile and Royal Arch Cascade about 2.2 miles.
Distances are straight-line.