The Highest Leaping Waterfall in the World Virtual Cache
The Highest Leaping Waterfall in the World
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The Highest Leaping Waterfall in the World.
The uppermost fall is a hanging valley. At the top of the Upper Fall, water from a creek suddenly falls 70 feet through a chute in the top of the cliff. When the water rushes from the chute, it leaps clear of the cliff and descends 1,430 feet in a broad parabolic curve down to the base of the Upper Fall.
The water then gathers in a pool at the base of the Upper Fall and then falls another 675 feet through several cascades to the top of the Lower Fall.
Again, the water gathers in a pool and then descends another 320 feet from the Lower Fall.
All together, these falls and cascades drop 2,425 feet making these falls the fifth highest waterfall in the world, behind Angel Falls in Venezuela (988 m; 3,212 ft) and others in Norway and South Africa. None of these higher falls leap out into the air as these falls do.
During the flood of 1997, logs and other debris shot out from the cliff, and buildings half a mile away were vibrating from the impacts.
See if you can see the Ybfg Neebj near the top and about a mile to the right of Upper Fall. This is a remnant of a slab of granite that is breaking away from the cliff along its vertical joints. If you are lucky, you can see some of the world's best mountain climbers climbing it.
See the falls at dusk and dawn as well as during the day.
Winter in Yosemite Valley is as awesome as it is in the Summer with some advantages. The waterfalls are fuller if not frozen and the volumne of visitors is very low.
At these particular falls, an ice cone often appears, in the winter, at the base of the Upper Fall. It looks like a white volcano with the waterfall water pouring into the volcano's mouth. This backward flowing ice volcano gets as high as 250 feet and covers an area up to 4 acres.
When the walkway to the Lower Falls gets icy, visitors have a hard time getting up the last steep hill to the falls. I delight in watching visitors suddenly slide backwards down the hill unable to do anything about their situation except go with the slide. Then they try again and here they come again and again. Some people panic. I have taken many a backwards slide myself desperately trying to find a tree or willing person to cling to. Most are amused and help each other. I wonder if 5 people clinging together would make them stable as they slide backwards. Perhaps we have a new sport here!
When you find this cache site at the bottom of the falls, you are standing at elevation 4001 feet.
TO LOG THIS CACHE, ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
1. What is the name of these falls?
2. How many posts are on one side of the man-made structure you are standing on?
3. Facing the falls, to your left is a warning sign less than 100 feet away. What does the warning sign say and what graphic does it display?
4. What activity is going on under the structure you are standing on (at the coordinates)?
Send the answers to me but don't put them in your log. Go ahead and post your log.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pyvzo gurz! (Svaq bhg jurer gur uvxvat cngu fgnegf naq znxr cercnengvbaf bs sbbq, jngre naq fnsrgl. Vg jvyy gnxr hc zbfg bs lbhe qnl.)