Tower Falls

This page describes the sites along the north edge of Yellowstone Park, with the highlight feature the Tower Falls. Because the road between Canyon and Tower was closed for construction, we had to drive up from Norris and through Mammoth Hot Springs. It takes a while to make this journey, partly because we stopped and looked at every thing that was interesting.

The first viewpoint beyond Mammoth is the Undine Falls. This is visible from a pulloff on the side of the road. There doesn't appear to be any hiking trails to give different views, but the falls is quite visible from the parking lot. The picture on the right was taken in the morning, when we were headed toward Tower, and the left picture was late in the afternoon as we were heading back.

If you want to see Wraith Falls, you will have to take a short hike. I think it was an easy mile or so.

The Blacktail Lakes area can sometimes be filled with buffalo. But not on the day we drove through. Still, it is some beautiful country, worthy of a photograph!

There is a giant Petrified Tree standing here. There used to be 3 trees, but now they have a fence around it to preserve what remains. It is unclear to me why the tree is standing up, obviously, it didn't petrify while standing, right?

Here is my best picture of Tower Falls. Unfortunately, they were working on the trail, so we could not take the walk down to the lower viewing platform. Aren't the rock formations interesting?

Between Tower Falls and the Tower/Roosevelt junction, the road runs alongside the Yellowstone River, it is along side a steep cliff. There are some pullouts where you can see the basalt formations on the other side of the river canyon. I took a bunch of pictures here because the steep canyon and the pinnacles made a grand impression on me. I also like the regular shapes of the basalt rocks.

The Yellowstone River flows in a northern direction here, this is downstream of the waterfalls in the Canyon area. The Yellowstone flows into the Missouri River, and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. Park literature says that at times in the past the Yellowstone River has flowed into the Pacific Ocean, and into the Arctic Ocean (via the Hudson Bay).