The creek begins at the northern boundary of the national park and flows 24 miles (39 km)[1] to empty into the Tuolumne at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, dropping over two well-known waterfalls.

It plunges into Jack Main Canyon, paralleling the Pacific Crest Trail, which carries it south to round Chittenden Peak, where Tilden Creek enters from the left.

[3][4] The Falls Creek watershed drains 44.5 square miles (115 km2)2012-03-29 of the Sierra Nevada northern Yosemite National Park.

The creek runs year round and is known to produce large amounts of runoff, often flooding bridges that carry the Hetch Hetchy trail over its mouth in the peak of snowmelt.

From Dorothy Pass at its headwaters to the beginning of the canyon, the Pacific Crest Trail follows the creek southward, but breaks away to the east afterward, near Wilma Lake.