Jermuk Waterfall does not come down as one column. It slips over the cliff in dozens of thin, parting threads, which is why Armenians call it Ջրահարսի վարսեր, the Mermaid's Hair. The drop is roughly 68 to 70 metres, fed by the small Jermuk River where it reaches the edge of the Arpa gorge in the southern region of Vayots Dzor. The water fans across a face of red-ochre basalt, and the mossy, sloping rock combs it apart into fine silver strands. Green hillsides curve around the gorge like the walls of a natural amphitheatre, and the falls are protected as a state natural monument. Above them stands the town of Jermuk itself, whose name comes from the Armenian word for warm.
A stepped path drops from near the road bridge and winds down along the gorge to the foot of the cascade. Down there the air turns cool and damp, and the water keeps up a steady whisper against the rock. The drop is not one clean plunge: the stream steps down three rounded shelves of rock before it reaches the Arpa. Armenians tell a story about the name — a girl was cursed to stay in the water and never come out again, and the falling threads are said to be her hair. Jermuk sits high above all this, at roughly 2,100 metres, where summers average only about fifteen degrees and the sun shines for well over two thousand hours a year. Most people who come to Jermuk come for the water they drink rather than the water they look at.