Yellowstone Cascades

Yellowstone is full of waterfalls, though none match the height of those in Yosemite. On the other hand, they flow year round...except that they freeze into icefalls in winter. This is Fairy Falls, a couple miles from the road near Old Faithful. It's about 200 feet high. This appears to be a complicated waterfall. Part of the flow is coming all the way from the top of the ledge, but upon close examination it looked pretty certain to me that another part of the flow is coming out of the recess in the cliff about halfway down the falls. Blow up the pic to study the falls. It appears there is an underground stream paralleling the aboveground branch. The 1988 fires burned right up to the edge of the water.

This is the upper fall of the Yellowstone River, in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It's about 100 feet high and thunders even now in mid September, at the time of minimal snowmelt and the end of a fairly dry summer.

Here are the lower falls, only about a mile downstream and about 300 feet high. This picture is from Artist Point, and was taken in late afternoon on a sunny day, which is the wrong scenario. It's much more colorful if you shoot this scene in the morning, preferably with clouds obscuring the sun. When I was here in 1972 the conditions were much better and the scene was breathtaking.

Gibbon Falls are only 84 feet high, but are very picturesque as they cascade sinuously down the canyon.