A Venezuelan tepui drop still argues over the height crown
Angel Falls, Salto Ángel in Spanish and Körepakupai Vená in Pemon, pours 979 metres off Auyán-tepui in Venezuela's Canaima National Park. No other waterfall drops so far without interruption, and it has an 807-metre main plunge, though no fresh survey has settled whether South Africa's Tugela Falls stands taller.
The quoted height mostly reflects the single plunge but also counts about 400 metres of sloping cascade and rapids below it. The water spills from one branch of the Río Körepa, which feeds the Churún, then the Carrao, and finally the Orinoco. Canaima, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, sits within Bolívar State's Gran Sabana. Both Angel and Tugela were measured from a long way off, which is why their ranking remains open.
The falls carry the name of Jimmie Angel, an American pilot searching for a rich ore bed, who flew over them on 16 November 1933. On 9 October 1937 he tried to land his Flamingo monoplane on top of Auyán-tepui, but the wheels sank into marshy ground. He, his wife Marie and two companions walked down the gentler back slope over eleven days, and the tale made the falls famous. The plane sat on the summit for 33 years until a helicopter lifted it out; it now stands at Ciudad Bolívar airport. After his death, his ashes were released above the cascade on 2 July 1960.
Earlier sightings are disputed. Walter Raleigh, chasing El Dorado, described what may have been a tepui, though claims that he saw the falls are considered far-fetched, and some historians credit the Spanish explorer Fernando de Berrío instead. The Latvian explorer Aleksandrs Laime reached the falls alone in 1946, and an expedition financed by American journalist Ruth Robertson fixed the official height on 13 May 1949. In 2009 President Hugo Chávez proposed switching to the Pemon name Kerepakupai-Merú, waterfall of the deepest place.
Getting there still takes effort: visitors fly to Canaima camp, then travel upriver with Pemon guides, usually between June and December when the rivers run deep enough. Venezuelan Max Botto made the first jump from the top in November 1983, and American Jerry Bird completed the first BASE jump. The falls inspired Paradise Falls in Pixar's 2009 film Up and appear in What Dreams May Come and the 2015 remake of Point Break.
Source: Angel Falls
