Sacred Texts Native American California Index Previous Next
Looking across to the left toward the top of the mountain a gleaming silvery thread of lace-like drapery can be seen, pouring over the cliffs at an elevation of thirty-three hundred feet above the road. This is Ribbon Fall, named by the Indians Lung-oo-too-koo-yah, or "the graceful and slender one." Shooting out from a canyon three hundred feet deep, which it has chiseled for itself in the mountain top, the stream falls in a torrent of exceeding beauty, surrounded by gauzy clouds of vari-colored mist, over sixteen hundred feet into the rocky basin below. Viewed from a distance the water seems to descend with a slow and easy grace that is captivating in the extreme.
[paragraph continues] But when standing near, one is appalled by the rapidity of its fall and the smashing vibration of its impact on the rocks. In the early spring, when the stream is augmented by rains and melting snows, the sheer loveliness of this, the world's highest unbroken waterfall, is charming beyond words.