The Kaweah River is a river draining the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare County, California in the United States. Fed primarily by high elevation snowmelt along the Great Western Divide, the Kaweah begins as four forks in Sequoia National Park, where the watershed is noted for its alpine scenery and its dense concentrations of giant sequoias, the largest trees on Earth. It then flows in a southwest direction to Lake Kaweah – the only major reservoir on the river – and into the San Joaquin Valley, where it diverges into multiple channels across an alluvial plain around Visalia. With its Middle Fork headwaters starting at almost 13,000 feet (4,000 m) above sea level, the river has a vertical drop of nearly two and a half miles (4.0 km) on its short run to the San Joaquin Valley, making it one of the steepest river drainages in the United States. Although the main stem of the Kaweah is only 33.6 miles (54.1 km) long, its total length including headwaters and lower branches is nearly 100 miles (160 km).
The Kaweah River above Terminus Dam
Hamilton Lake and the Valhalla Cliffs at the headwaters of the Kaweah River
Lake Kaweah is the only major reservoir on the Kaweah River.
The Marble Fork of the Kaweah River, in Sequoia National Park
The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is part of the American Cordillera, an almost continuous chain of mountain ranges that forms the western "backbone" of the Americas.
The Sierra's Mills Creek cirque (center) is on the west side of the Sierra Crest, south of Mono Lake (top, blue).
Kearsarge Lakes Basin is named after the USS Kearsarge
The Sierra hosts many waterways, such as the Tuolumne River.
Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the range and the contiguous United States