Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
13.1/2.3 Side road to Artist Point along the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. This 1.6-mile
(2.6 km) road, South Rim Drive, takes you to two viewpoints for the canyon and opportun-
ities for hiking. There are also five viewpoints on the north rim (see page 184 ) .
This side road first crosses the Yellowstone River on Chittenden Bridge, named ater
Hiram Chittenden, the captain in the Corps of Engineers who planned and directed the con-
struction of many of Yellowstone's roads between 1891 and 1906. He followed a parallel career
as a historian, writing The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and Descriptive and three oth-
er histories of the American West.
Incidentally, this canyon was often called Grand Canyon, until Grand Canyon National
Park was set aside in Arizona in 1919. Now people simply call the area Canyon or sometimes
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
Here's what naturalist John Muir wrote in 1898 about Hayden Valley, the
Yellowstone River, and its falls:
For the first twenty miles its course is in a level, sunny valley lightly fringed with trees, through
which it flows in silvery reaches stirred into spangles here and there by ducks and leaping trout,
making no sound save a low whispering among the pebbles and the dipping willows and the
sedges of its banks. Then suddenly, as if preparing for hard work, it rushes eagerly, impetuously
forward rejoicing in its strength, breaks into foam-bloom, and goes thundering down into the
Grand Cañon in two magnificent falls, one hundred and three hundred feet high.
SOUTH RIM DRIVE
Howard Eaton and Wapiti Lake trailheads are just over the bridge. There's access
both for picnicking and for hiking the backcountry trails.
(0.5) Uncle Tom's Trail parking area on your left. Here you may choose to leave
your car to see the Upper Falls, take Uncle Tom's Trail partway down the canyon, or hike
either the South Rim Trail or the Clear Lake Trail. You may want to pick up a Yellowstone As-
sociation pamphlet about the whole Canyon area from the dispenser near the parking area.
Uncle Tom's Overlook at the canyon rim is a wheelchair-accessible viewing area for the
Upper Falls of the Yellowstone and Crystal Falls of Cascade Creek (across the canyon).
An early park tour guide and enterprising character, “Uncle Tom” Richardson, built the
first crude trail into the canyon in 1898. After ferrying visitors across the Yellowstone above
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