Tokopah Falls, Cascading waterfall in Sequoia National Park, California.

Tokopah Falls is a waterfall in Sequoia National Park, California, where water drops over a series of granite steps at the end of a narrow valley. Tall, bare granite walls rise steeply on both sides of the stream, closing the valley into a tight rocky corridor.

During the last ice age, glaciers carved this valley out of solid granite, leaving behind the smooth walls and U-shaped floor that define it today. After the ice retreated, meltwater gradually carved the channel the falls now follow.

The trail passes through groves of giant sequoias and open mountain meadows where marmots and black bears are regularly spotted. Many visitors pause at the calmer stretches of the river on the way back, taking in the silence of the high Sierra.

The trail begins at Lodgepole Campground and follows the river upstream all the way to the base of the falls. Most of the path is wide and easy to follow, though the final stretch narrows and gains more elevation.

The falls drop about 1,200 feet (370 m) where the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River slides down a granite headwall of the glacial Tokopah Valley. In late spring and early summer snowmelt the flow is powerful, but by autumn it is usually a trickle and in poor snow years it can dry up completely. The name Tokopah is one of the few place names in the park drawn from the language of the people who lived there first.