The stream originates in the wide basin, shaped in part by ancient glaciers, that extends between the Corno alle Scale and Mount Spigolino, where the various water courses travel across undulating grassy slopes to meet just upstream of the falls, creating a voluminous waterway that plummets into the depths of the beech forest. The existence of the falls is due to a number of factors, one of the key ones being the significant vertical distance between the mountaintop basin and the valley areas below: in fact, from the highest point of the falls to the plunge pool at the bottom, the waters have an overall height difference in excess of 100 m. The Dardagna Stream continues beyond the park's limits and winds westward after Mount Capel Buso at Rocca Corneta to end its course in the Leo Stream, a tributary of the Panaro River, which, in turn, is a tributary of the Po River.