June 13th - Yellowstone - Canyon and Falls of the Yellowstone River, Wyoming

We had vivid memories from our previous visit over thirty years ago of seeing the thundering falls of the Yellowstone River in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone area, so we decided to drive over and see it again. It’s always interesting to see if something is as good as you remember it being, even at the risk of sometimes being disappointed. We parked at a small parking lot near the brink of the upper falls and then walked a trail along the southern rim to get a good view of everything.

Our first stop was the upper falls, which starts with a gentle cascade but then plunges over a sheer cliff into a semi-circular pool below. It was quite a sight up close, and we also had nice views of the upper falls as we walked on downstream toward the lower falls. We even passed by a feeder creek that had its own small-scale cascade/waterfall as it jumped down the hill to join the Yellowstone.

To get to the brink of the lower falls we had to climb down 600 feet along a series of switchbacks. We were so tired from all the walking the previous day that at first I wasn’t sure if it was really worth it, but since one vivid memory I had was standing on the brink of these huge falls in 1972, I decided to do it. The view from the brink of the falls is just as loud, tremendous, and exciting as I remembered it. These falls are much higher but also much narrower than Niagara Falls, and that coupled with the fact that you are really standing right next to all that water crashing down below gives a really unforgettable experience. Double Wow. We also had some nice views downstream into the fantastically carved and colored Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. But climbing back up was a challenge and we really took our time with it, stopping pretty much at each turn of the switchbacks to catch our breath.

We continued walking downstream to an overlook that gave us a magnificent view back up the canyon to the lower falls. It is easier to take a picture of the falls here as they are way too big to capture when you are standing on the brink, but the experience of standing on the brink is much more exciting than seeing the falls from a distance. Still, the falls are very pretty, and again we had great views of the canyon, but this time in both directions. We could have walked down 600 feet again for yet another view, but my legs just wouldn’t agree to that so we skipped it.

We retraced our steps to the car and drove to one other viewpoint on the canyon. While waiting for the sun to come out for our pictures, we talked with a British guy who had been working in Silicon Valley, I gathered. He was taking his family on a 8-month tour of the U.S. in an RV before heading back to Britain in the fall. He had an single-lens-reflex type of camera but with a digital back that had a 6-megapixel sensor! I had to sigh with envy. Finally the sun came out and we could all snap our pictures—he took one of us with the falls in the background. We then headed back to camp where we collapsed back into bed for a nap.

The nap restored us enough that by about 4:30 we had energy to walk down to the parking lot and visit the Ranger Museum there at Norris Campground. That Ranger Museum at Norris is the old Ranger station that actually dated back to the days when the U.S. Army ran Yellowstone Park. A retired Ranger was there to chat with us and clarify the exhibits—none of this would be possible without the unpaid volunteers since the paid staff has been cut so drastically. They had packed a lot of nice exhibits into just 4 rooms including a recreation of what a back country Ranger Station looked like in the old days. There were very explicit rules about leaving everything prepared for someone else’s use in a winter emergency—very sensible precaution! We walked from the museum back to our campsite in the C loop, had a quick dinner, and went to bed early to try to complete our recovery from the previous day.