McWay Falls is an

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

on the coast of

Big Sur Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big Sur ha ...

in central

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

that flows year-round from McWay Creek in

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park is a state park in California, 12 miles south of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park on California's Pacific coast. A main feature of the park is McWay Falls, which drops over a cliff of into the Pacific Ocean. The p ...

, about south of

Carmel Carmel may refer to: * Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea * Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea * Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order Carmel may also ...

, into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. During high tide, it is a tidefall, a waterfall that empties directly into the ocean. The only other tidefall in California is Alamere Falls.

History

Saddle Rock Ranch

In 1924, wealthy U.S. Congressman Lathrop Brown and his wife Hélène Hooper Brown visited Big Sur. They bought Saddle Rock Ranch, a property that included a seaside promontory known as Saddle Rock that overlooked Saddle Rock Cove, from pioneer

homesteader Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres * Homestead principle, a legal concept ...

Christopher McWay. Hélène was a good friend of

Julia Pfeiffer Burns Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e. ...

until Julia died in 1928. Julia's great-niece Esther Julia Pfeiffer and her husband Hans Ewoldsen were caretakers of the Saddle Rock Ranch for many years.''Big Sur: Images of America'', Jeff Norman, Big Sur Historical Society, Arcadia Publishing (2004), 128 pages, The Browns first built a rough

redwood Sequoioideae, popularly known as redwoods, is a subfamily of coniferous trees within the family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affini ...

cabin on a site at the top of the cliffs opposite McWay Falls. They replaced that in 1940 with a modern two-story home named Waterfall House. The entryway was inlaid with an ornamental brass fish, a gold octopus, and a compass rose. The interior was decorated with fine furnishings and classic paintings. During construction of Carmel San Simeon Highway through Big Sur, Saddle Rock Ranch foreman Hans Ewoldsen worked in the machine shop of the highway construction crew to build a

Pelton wheel The Pelton wheel or Pelton Turbine is an impulse-type water turbine invented by American inventor Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to water's dead weight like the trad ...

. He used hand-split redwood from the canyon and other materials he bought. He installed the wheel on McWay Creek in 1932. The undershot wheel ran a 32-volt generator and was the first electric power in the Big Sur area. It supplied power to three residences, a blacksmith shop, and a

funicular railway A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite en ...

Donated to state

Lathrop and Hélène Brown left Big Sur for

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

in 1956, where Lathrop died in 1959. In 1961, Hélène Hooper Brown donated the entire property to the state, stipulating that it be used as a park and named for her good friend, Julia Pfeiffer Burns, "a true pioneer". She included the requirement that Waterfall House be converted into a "museum for the custody and display of indigenous Indian relics, flora and fauna of the California coastal area, and historical objects pertaining to the Big Sur country", or otherwise demolished. The museum could not be completed in time for several reasons, including competing museums, shortage of funds, and poor access to the site, and the mansion was demolished in 1965. An overlook of McWay Falls was later built on the site of the former home.

Topography

In 1983, Big Sur experienced one of the wettest years on record with of rain. Up to this time, McWay Falls fell directly into the ocean. The huge rainfall resulted in several landslides and mudflows, including an extremely large mudslide immediately north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park on March 1. The mudflow entered the ocean immediately to the north of the falls, and Highway 1 was closed for a year while the road was repaired. Reconstruction deposited nearly of landslide material on the coast, at the base of the slope. Wave action then transported some of the debris south to McWay Cove, forming a sandy beach beneath the falls where none had previously existed. Loose material from the slope beneath the road is still contributing sand to the coastal system. McWay Falls now meets the ocean only when the tide is in, but over time, the beach may wear away so that the falls drop directly into the ocean again.

Current use

File:McWay Falls from PCH Hwy 1.jpg, Falls from the Pacific Coast Highway File:Big Sur McWay Falls 06.JPG, Falls and beach File:McWay Falls from the short trail parallel to PCH Hwy 1.jpg, View of falls from the trail File:Big Sur McWay Falls 36.JPG, View of the falls File:McWay Falls Big Sur September 2012 001.jpg, View of the

cove A cove is a small type of bay or coastal inlet. Coves usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creeks, or recesses in a coast are o ...

File:McWay Falls Aug 2019 3.jpg, View of the falls Due to the high cliffs surrounding the cove, the beach is inaccessible except by boat, and may be covered by surf at high tide. The outlet of McWay Creek at the top of McWay Falls is accessible by a trail that starts at a parking area just east of

Highway 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbered ...

. From the parking lot, visitors can walk down a dirt path toward the ocean, through a short tunnel under the highway to the overlook. The Waterfall Overlook of McWay Falls was built on the site formerly occupied by the Browns' mansion. Visitors to the site today can view remnants of the home's foundation, landscaping (including palm trees), and the funicular railway. Ewoldsen's original Pelton wheel is displayed in a small building.

In popular culture

McWay Falls is featured in the music video for "

I Need a Doctor "I Need a Doctor" is a single by American rapper Dr. Dre featuring fellow American rapper Eminem and American singer Skylar Grey. The song was produced by Alex da Kid and released for digital download through the American iTunes Store on February ...

" by hip-hop artist

Dr. Dre Andre Romelle Young (born February 18, 1965), known professionally as Dr. Dre, is an American rapper and record producer. He is the founder and CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and Beats Electronics, and previously co-founded, co-owned, and ...

References

External links

{{commons category
McWay Falls at World of Waterfalls
Landforms of Monterey County, California Waterfalls of California Plunge waterfalls Big Sur