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You've seen a waterfall, but have you ever seen a "tidefall?" The U.S.has just four.The stuff fantasy films are made of.Most waterfalls end in a pool, a river, or a rocky gorge.Tidefalls do something far more dramatic: they plunge straight off a coastal cliff into the open ocean, sending freshwater crashing into saltwater in a collision that shouldn't look as surreal as it does.Of the roughly 30,000 documented waterfalls on Earth, geographers have identified only around 31 tidefalls worldwide — and the United States has exactly four of them.Here's where to find each one.McWay Falls, Big Sur, California McWay Falls is the one you've seen on screensavers and travel magazines without knowing what to call it: an 80-foot ribbon of water dropping off a granite cliff onto a crescent of pale sand, backed by the turquoise Pacific.It sits inside Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, about halfway through the Big Sur coast, and it is objectively one of the most photogenic natural features in the country.A word of warning before you go: the Overlook Trail leading to the classic viewing platform has been closed since April 2025 for a long-term retaining-wall repair project expected to continue through 2026.You can still see the falls from a roadside pullout on Highway 1, but the iconic up-close view is temporarily offline.The good news is that Big Sur's Highway 1 just fully reopened in January 2026 after a three-year landslide closure, so reaching it no longer requires a brutal inland detour.Just check Caltrans QuickMap before you leave — one-lane sections still exist while crews stabilize slopes.Alamere Falls, Point Reyes National Seashore, California Alamere Falls requires some effort, and it rewards you accordingly.Reaching this 40-foot tidefall in Marin County — north of San Francisco within the wild stretch of Point Reyes National Seashore — involves a 13-mile round-trip hike across open coastal bluffs and through a wilderness area with no road access.There's no parking lot at the base, no visitor center, no easy shortcut.What you get at the end is a waterfall sheeting over shale cliffs directly onto a remote, usually empty beach, with the Pacific stretching to the horizon beyond it.This is the kind of place people hike for hours to reach, then sit in front of for another hour because leaving feels wrong.Go on a clear day in spring or fall to avoid both summer crowds and winter storm closures.Strawberry Bay Falls, Olympic National Park, Washington Most visitors to Olympic National Park's coastline walk Third Beach and don't realize they're standing near one of the rarest geological features in the country.Strawberry Bay Falls — also called Third Beach Falls — drops more than 100 feet from a high bluff at the southern end of the beach straight into the Pacific surf.It's a 1.3-mile hike through old-growth Sitka spruce and hemlock to reach the beach, and then a short walk south along the sand.There's one significant catch: the waterfall is fed by a small, unnamed stream with limited drainage area, which means it flows reliably only during the rainier months — roughly October through early spring.Visit in the dry season and you may find the bluff entirely dry.But if you catch it in full flow, the sight of a waterfall thundering off a headland into crashing Pacific waves — in a park that already has giant rainforest, wild elk, and tide pools — is, in two words, a lot.Kaluahine Falls, Big Island, Hawaii The fourth American tidefall is the most elusive.Kaluahine Falls tumbles off the cliffs north of Waipio Valley on the Big Island, plunging into the Pacific — but only after significant rainfall.The falls are ephemeral, meaning they can run dry entirely during dry stretches, then appear almost overnight after a storm.Reaching Kaluahine requires either a coastal scramble from the black sand beach at the bottom of Waipio Valley — over boulders and rough terrain that demands respect for wave conditions — or a boat tour along the North Kohala coast.Neither is a casual undertaking.But that inaccessibility is part of the point: this is a place that exists on its own terms, visible when the conditions align and hidden when they don't.If you want bragging rights to all four American tidefalls, this is the one that earns them.One last thing: Before you plan a tidefall pilgrimage, check current conditions for every single one.Coastal waterfalls exist at the intersection of land, water, and weather, which means access can change fast.The McWay overlook is closed.Kaluahine may not be flowing.Strawberry Bay could be bone dry in August.The reward for doing your homework is standing somewhere that most people will never see — in front of something that, technically speaking, shouldn't even exist.If you love nature as much as I do, I'd love if you could follow me on Yahoo Creators for more articles on our wild world.This shows the Yahoo team what their readers want — and the more brands that support the planet, the better.