Yellowstone Falls

Today, I’m jumping ahead to the last stop on our photographic odyssey, Yellowstone NP, Wyoming. One of the highlights of the park was the Yellowstone Falls, one of the few major attractions that was accessible this early in the season. The park as been open since April 15, but spring does not come early at 7000 ft and there is still a lot of snow around, making access very limited.

Yellowstone Falls consist of two major waterfalls on the Yellowstone River. As the Yellowstone river flows north from Yellowstone Lake, it leaves the Hayden Valley and plunges first over Upper Yellowstone Falls and then a quarter mile downstream over Lower Yellowstone Falls, at which point it then enters the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which is up to 1,000 feet (304 m) deep.

The upper falls are 109 feet (33 m) high. Here’s a shot of the upper falls taken from a viewpoint on the canyon rim.

The lower falls are 308 feet (94 m) high, or almost twice as high as Niagara. The volume of water is in no way comparable to Niagara as the width of the Yellowstone River before it goes over the lower falls is 70 feet (22 m), whereas Niagara is a half mile (800 m). Yellowstone Falls are the largest volume major waterfall in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. The volume of water flowing over the falls can vary from 63,500 USgal/s (240 m³/s) at peak runoff to 5,000 USgal/s (19 m³/s) in the fall. We were fortunate to see these falls in full spring runoff. Here’s a view of the falls and the downstream canyon taken from a vantage point called Artist Point. This is reputedly the most photographed scene in Yellowstone NP. 

You can see where the name “Yellowstone” originates. I like this wider view of the canyon but I zoomed in for a close-up of the falls, in the hope of better capturing its majesty. Here’s the result of that effort.

I’ll share more pictures of Yellowstone NP in a later posting in this series of blogs covering Howie’s and my photographic journey from Phoenix to Calgary.