Yosemite Creek

Yosemite Creek is a creek in Yosemite National Park, California, USA. The creek starts at Grant Lakes (coord|37.90103|-119.54072) and flows southwest then southeast to the Merced River at Yosemite Lodge just southwest of Yosemite Village. (coord|37.74243|-119.59461) [cite gnis|253968|Yosemite Creek]

The Yosemite Creek watershed, which feeds Yosemite Falls, contains convert|43|sqmi|km2. It is largely a granite basin that was scraped clean of soil by glaciers. Because of the shallow soil base, the Yosemite Creek watershed has little capacity to hold water, so it quickly drains as the snow melts. [cite web|title=Yosemite at a Glance: Waterfalls|work=Yosemite National Park|url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/yose/education/glance/waterfalls/watershed.htm]

Today, Yosemite Creek flows over the valley rim to create Upper Yosemite Fall. Before its diversion about 130,000 years ago, Yosemite Creek flowed down an older channel just to the west, from which it cascaded down through the steep ravine that is now the route of the Yosemite Falls trail. [cite book|title=The Geologic Story of Yosemite Valley|author=N. King Huber|url=http://geology.wr.usgs.gov/parks/yos/topobk.html|year=1922]

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