Piute Creek (Tuolumne River tributary)

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Piute Creek is a roughly 19-mile-long stream in northern Yosemite National Park, Tuolumne County, California. It is a major tributary of the Tuolumne River and drains a rugged area of the Sierra Nevada.

The creek starts at an unnamed lake near Burro Pass and Matterhorn Peak, high in the Sierra Nevada (about 10,300 feet above sea level). It flows west, then southwest into Slide Canyon, where it briefly goes underground through a talus pile called The Slide. After Slide Canyon it is joined by Camp Creek and Rock Creek, then it drops steeply into Benson Lake.

Emerging from the southern end of Benson Lake, Piute Creek moves through Pleasant Valley, passing by the small lakes Saddle Horse, Irwin Bright, and Table Lakes. It then cascades down a long series of waterfalls into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne. The creek finally joins the Tuolumne River in Pate Valley, about 5 miles upstream from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir (mouth elevation around 4,340 feet).

Piute Creek has also been known as Cascade Creek and Slide Creek.