Artist Point, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Interesting facts

The Lower Falls seen from Artist Point are 308 feet high, nearly twice the height of Niagara Falls.

At its brink the Yellowstone River narrows to only about 70 feet across before plunging into the canyon.

The falls pour over the Canyon Rhyolite, a lava flow roughly 590,000 years old left by the Yellowstone volcano.

Geologists think much of the canyon was scoured by sudden floods released when ice dams at the outlet of Yellowstone Lake melted, about 14,000–18,000 years ago.

Its classic V-shaped profile shows that the canyon was cut by the river, not carved by glaciers.

The earliest known drawings of the falls were made in 1870 by Private Charles Moore of the army escort of the Washburn expedition.

Frank Jay Haynes, the photographer who named Artist Point, also took the first winter photographs of the Lower Falls in January 1887.

Early guesses at the falls' height varied wildly: Jim Bridger put it at 250 feet in 1851, and one 1867 newspaper claimed thousands of feet.

Ansel Adams photographed the Lower Falls in 1941, adding to a line of images that began with William Henry Jackson's survey photographs of 1871.

Artist Point itself stands about 2,330 metres above sea level, high on the Yellowstone Plateau.

Why it is worth it

Artist Point is a rocky ledge on the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and it frames what may be the single most painted and photographed scene in the American West: the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, a 308-foot (94-metre) white plume dropping between walls of yellow, ochre, salmon and cream rock, with the green river winding away in the depths below. From the overlook the canyon runs straight towards the waterfall, so the view has the composed quality of a stage set — the falls at the vanishing point, the coloured cliffs as wings.

The canyon itself stretches for about 24 miles, and in places is more than a thousand feet deep. Its colours are the product of heat and water rather than paint: the walls are rhyolite, a volcanic rock left by Yellowstone's past eruptions, which hydrothermal activity has cooked and altered. Iron compounds in the rock give the yellows and reds, and their shades depend on how much water they hold — in effect, the canyon is slowly rusting. Thermal features such as Calcite Spring still mark the canyon, and the palette shifts with the light through the day.

The name is a small historical accident. In 1883 the photographer Frank Jay Haynes christened the point in the belief that the painter Thomas Moran had sketched the falls from here for his 1872 depictions of the canyon, which include his celebrated canvas The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Later research showed that Moran had worked from the north rim, but the name stayed — and the view it offers remains the one that fixed the canyon's image in the public imagination.

Getting there

Artist Point is on South Rim Drive in the Canyon area of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, a short walk from the road. The nearest city is Bozeman, Montana, about 115 km away in a straight line, and the nearest airport is Yellowstone Airport (WYS) at West Yellowstone, about 51 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

Artist Point is an overlook point on the edge of a cliff on the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The point is located east-northeast of Yellowstone Falls on the Yellowstone River. Artist Point was originally named in 1883 by Frank Jay Haynes who improperly believed that the point was the place at which painter Thomas Moran sketched his 1872 depictions of the falls. Later work determined that the sketches were made from the north rim, but the name Artist Point stuck.

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Artist Point, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia