Fig. 1 · the survey

The survey of the falls

Llewellyn Falls on Silver King Creek, measured on the USGS 1 m lidar flown in 2022; and what the lidar can and cannot see.

Above the Falls Silver King Creek to the Carson Sink · 188 miles, seen from the side, not to scale Llewellyn Falls · 7,960 ft above sea level USGS GNIS · Lost Cannon Peak quad, 1954

Llewellyn FallsAbout 20 ft

Above the falls
4.5 miles Below the falls
183 miles Silver King Creek → East Fork of the Carson → the Carson → Carson Sink The Great Basin · no outlet to the sea

Fig. 1 Silver King Creek from its source to the Carson Sink, drawn as a cross-section: an illustration, not to scale. Llewellyn Falls is the small white step high on the left. Below it the water runs down the East Fork of the Carson and the Carson, out through Carson Valley and the desert to the Carson Sink, in the Great Basin, with no outlet to the sea. The survey below measures the falls on the 2022 USGS lidar: 6.5 m (21 ft) over 29 m of channel. Ryan & Nicola gave the falls as about 20 ft in 1976.

The falls, drawn from the numbers

The same 400 m painted a second way, straight from the survey: every boulder, band and pine placed by distance and height, and the falls painted as a ledge, as Ryan & Nicola described it in 1976, about 20 ft, where the lidar sees a slope.

The creek painted from the survey: a bouldery granite bench under a thin cobalt creek descends left to right; at 200 m the water drops over a near-vertical ledge into a pool; level meadow water runs to the right edge. — Fig. 2The falls drawn from the numbers, 400 m at true scale. The line is the lidar; the bracket names what the lidar saw through the falls, the dimension the height Ryan & Nicola gave.

Upper reach at full size: boulders on the line, the granite band, buff washes, two pines. — Above the falls, 23–100 m, at full size.

The falls at full size with the survey line: shelf, face, curtain, pool; the line runs diagonally through the shelf rock and over the pool. — The falls, 165–242 m, with the lidar line.

The same crop of the falls without the survey line. — The same, without the line.

Meadow reach at full size: calm water, grass along the bank, a single pine. — Below the falls, 253–330 m.

The lidar sheet

The numbers

The falls, lidar	6.5 m (21 ft) over 29 m of channel, 187–216 m along
The falls, on foot	about 20 ft (6.1 m), Ryan & Nicola, 1976
The whole reach	the creek falls 16.5 m over the 400 m shown
The frame	400 × 68.7 m at true scale: 1 m across is 1 m up
The source	USGS 3DEP 1 m bare-earth model, CA_SierraNevada_B22, flown 2022

How the line was drawn

The creek line is traced through the lidar model along the lowest ground, by where water would flow across it. In the channel the model shows the water surface where the laser could not reach the bed.

A 1 m model cannot resolve a vertical face. Through the falls it shows 6.5 m of fall over 29 m of channel: the drop and the sloping rock below it together, read in 1 m squares. That is the orange part of the line. It is the largest such step within 150 m of the falls as mapped.

The painting is a watercolor bent onto this line: its ground and its falls sit where the lidar puts them.

The height, every way it has been measured

Source	How	Height
Walter Thornburg, 1933, quoted by J. O. Snyder, California Fish and Game 20(2), 1934, p. 111	A written account quoted by Snyder: “some 20 feet of perpendicular drop. The water falls on a sloping apron of granite”	about 20 ft
Ryan & Nicola, California Department of Fish and Game, 1976	“about 6.1 m (20 ft)”; how it was measured is not stated. Their Fig. 7 photograph (p. 17) shows a person at the pool	about 20 ft (6.1 m)
Ryan & Nicola, 1976, attributing it to Snyder, 1934	A figure they correct: “about 6.1 m (20 ft), not 15 m (50 ft), as reported by Snyder (1934)”	No 50 ft appears in Snyder’s 1934 paper; its source has not been found
USGS 3DEP 1 m lidar, flown 2022, traced for this page	From the air, in 1 m squares; a face is averaged into a slope	21 ft (6.5 m) over 29 m of channel
Our first survey, 23 September 2026 (withdrawn)	21 points along a straight 400 m line, not the channel	~~26 ft lip to pool~~

No one has published an instrument measurement of the face itself; the two figures of about 20 ft are estimates, and the lidar reads the whole step. The falls stands at about 7,980 ft above the sea (USGS 3DEP). Our first survey ran a straight line across the ground rather than down the channel; its 26 ft mixed hillside into the creek, and it was replaced by the lidar trace.

The falls in maps

We have found no map before 1934 that draws or names the falls. The General Land Office plats of 1877 and 1879, the Wheeler Survey atlas sheet of 1883 and the USGS Dardanelles sheet, surveyed 1891–96 and reprinted into the 1950s, all cross the country and miss it. Snyder’s 1934 paper and its sketch map are the earliest documents we have found that write “Llewellyn Falls”; the first federal map to name it is the USGS Lost Cannon Peak quadrangle, from aerial photographs of 1953, field-checked in 1954 and printed in 1955.

USGS Dardanelles 30-minute sheet, 1912 printing: Fish Valley and Silver King Creek, with a pack trail, and no falls. — **1912.** USGS Dardanelles 30′, surveyed 1891–96, 1912 printing. Silver King Creek, Fish Valley, a pack trail; no falls.

J. O. Snyder's 1934 sketch map of the headwaters, with Llewellyn Falls lettered on Silver King Creek above Fish Valley. — **1934.** J. O. Snyder, Fig. 20, *California Fish and Game* 20(2), p. 107. The earliest map we have found that names “Llewellyn Falls”.

USGS Lost Cannon Peak 7.5-minute sheet, 1954: Llewellyn Falls named between Lower and Upper Fish Valley, with Connells Cow Camp above it. — **1955.** USGS Lost Cannon Peak 7.5′, field-checked 1954, printed 1955. The first federal map to name the falls; Connells Cow Camp above it.

Photographs

The falls in 1934: white water pouring down a rock cleft between dark walls. — **Before 1934.** E. L. Macaulay, published by Snyder, 1934, Fig. 21, p. 108. The earliest photograph of the falls we have found.

The falls in 1976, a person standing at the pool below. — **1976.** Ryan & Nicola, Fig. 7, p. 17; a person stands at the pool.

The falls in 2019 from above, in color: two white steps between pale rock slabs and pines. — **18 September 2019.** Joanna Gilkeson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The name

J. O. Snyder’s paper of November 1933, in the Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, says in a footnote: “Specimens were collected by Mrs. Lynn Llewellyn and sent to the State Division of Fish and Game.” It does not name the falls. His 1934 paper and map are the earliest documents we have found that do. The federal place-name record carries no decision by the Board on Geographic Names.

That the falls is named for Mrs. Llewellyn is widely assumed and has never been shown; no document we have found says so before 1987.

The rock

The USGS geologic map of the Sonora Pass quadrangle (James R. Giusso, Open-File Report 81-1170, 1981, 1:62,500) prints the falls and maps the rock at and around it as the Stanislaus Group, Tertiary volcanic rock, with valley fill above and below. It maps nothing granitic there.

Walter Thornburg wrote in 1933 that “the falls are over granite rocks.” The map and the observer disagree. What rock forms the lip itself, a map cannot say.

The water

Silver King Creek runs into the East Fork of the Carson, the East Fork into the Carson, and the Carson, past Lahontan Reservoir, into the Carson Sink, in the Great Basin, with no outlet to the sea.

The land

The General Land Office patent index shows only two private patents in the falls’ township, to Charles Carney (1883) and Thomas J. Cochran (1888), both in its middle sections. It was Mono National Forest from 1908, administered from Gardnerville; in 1945 this country went to the Toiyabe, now the Humboldt-Toiyabe; since 1984 it has been the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness.

A pack trail up Silver King Creek through Fish Valley is drawn on the 1912 map; on the 1954 map the trail between Lower and Upper Fish Valley passes the falls. Sheep grazed the Silver King allotment from the early 1900s to about the 1930s, then cattle; the permit was cancelled in 1995. Connells Cow Camp, about a fifth of a mile upstream, is first named on the 1954 map, the earliest we have found to name it. A Forest Service heritage record, TY-3335, “Connell Cabin”, was evaluated in 1994; whether a cabin still stands there is unconfirmed.

Sources and data

John Otterbein Snyder, “Description of Salmo seleniris, a new California trout”, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 4th ser., 20, 1933, pp. 471–472; and “A new California trout”, California Fish and Game 20(2), 1934, pp. 105–112.
J. H. Ryan and S. J. Nicola, Status of the Paiute cutthroat trout, Salmo clarki seleniris Snyder, in California, California Department of Fish and Game, Inland Fisheries Administrative Report 76-3, 1976.
U.S. Geological Survey: Dardanelles 30′ (1912 printing); Lost Cannon Peak 7.5′ (1954, printed 1955); 3D Elevation Program 1 m model, project CA_SierraNevada_B22, flown 2022.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, photograph by Joanna Gilkeson, 18 September 2019.
General Land Office survey plats, 1877 and 1879; Wheeler Survey atlas sheet 56B, 1883.
James R. Giusso, Preliminary geologic map of the Sonora Pass 15-minute quadrangle, California, USGS Open-File Report 81-1170, 1981.

The profile every 5 m: distance and height relative to the upstream end (CSV).
The creek traced at about 1 m: distance, UTM 11N easting and northing, ground height, upstream drainage area (CSV).
The lidar sheet (PDF).