Waterfalls in Wyoming

Wyoming's waterfalls, from Yellowstone's canyon to the Wind River Range

Nearly nine of every ten of Wyoming's 267 named waterfalls sit in the two counties around Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, and each park was built by a different force. Yellowstone's plateau rose from repeated rhyolite lava flows after a supereruption about 631,000 years ago, and the Yellowstone River has since cut a canyon through rock that hot water weakened into the yellow and orange walls the park is named for. The Teton Range broke upward along a single fault six to nine million years ago, the youngest range in the Rockies, while the granite of the Wind River Range, over a billion years old, was carved into cirques and alpine lakes by later glaciers. Waterfalls collect wherever a stream drops off the edge of one of these landscapes.

Where the waterfalls are

Teton County and Park County between them hold 235 of the state's listings, split across Grand Teton National Park and the north and west sides of Yellowstone. East of the Tetons, the granite peaks of the Wind River Range spread across Fremont County and Sublette County. In north-central Wyoming, Big Horn County holds a small cluster in the Bighorn Mountains. The rest of the state adds single listings in Converse, Lincoln, Natrona, Albany, Platte and Sheridan counties.

Waterfalls worth the trip

• Lower Yellowstone Falls, 308 feet on the Yellowstone River, is reached by a steep 0.7-mile round trip that descends 600 feet to the brink. Upper Yellowstone Falls, 109 feet just upstream, drops from the same canyon rim, and together the two open the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
• Tower Fall, 111 feet past a row of eroded volcanic pinnacles, is a short walk from its own parking area on the Tower-Canyon road.
• Undine Falls, 69 feet in three plunges on Lava Creek, is visible right from a roadside pullout between Mammoth and Tower.
• Osprey Falls, 177 feet on the Gardner River, sits at the bottom of an 8-mile round trip that descends about 700 feet into Sheepeater Canyon.
• Silver Cord Cascade, about 520 feet in four leaps into the canyon, was long billed at 1,200 feet before a lidar survey showed the true height; it is seen from across the canyon on the Seven Mile Hole Trail.
• Hidden Falls, 185 feet on Cascade Creek above Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park, is a 1-mile round trip with 300 feet of climbing from the west boat dock, reached by a shuttle-boat ride across the lake.
• Union Falls, about 147 feet on Mountain Ash Creek in Yellowstone's remote Bechler region, takes an 8-mile hike each way and a ford of the Falls River to reach.
• Popo Agie Falls, 75 feet on the Middle Fork Popo Agie River, is a 1.5-mile walk from the Bruce parking area next to Sinks Canyon State Park, where the river itself disappears underground and resurfaces in a pool downstream.

When to go

Yellowstone's high-plateau falls are fed by snowmelt and run strongest through June, then thin by late summer, a pattern Osprey Falls and Silver Cord Cascade both follow closely. The North Entrance road between Gardiner and Cooke City is Yellowstone's only route open to cars year-round; the park's other roads open between April 17 and May 22 and close by the end of October in 2026, and the Jenny Lake shuttle to Hidden Falls runs May 15 through September 30. The ford on the Union Falls trail often runs too high to cross safely before mid-July.

Fees, shuttles and closures

Yellowstone and Grand Teton each charge $35 per vehicle for seven days, $30 per motorcycle or $20 per pedestrian or cyclist in 2026, plus $100 per non-US resident age 16 or older; the parks share no combined pass, so a trip through both means paying twice. The Jenny Lake shuttle to Hidden Falls runs every 10 to 15 minutes from the East Boat Dock, no reservation needed. Sinks Canyon State Park, by Popo Agie Falls, charges Wyoming's standard state-park rate of $7 a vehicle for residents and $12 for non-residents. Camping in the Bechler backcountry for an overnight trip to Union Falls needs a permit at $5 per person a night plus a $10 reservation fee; day hikes need none.

The June 2022 flood still shapes Yellowstone's northern corner. The bridge to Rescue Creek Trailhead, off the North Entrance Road, washed out and has not been replaced, a Blacktail Creek bridge abutment is failing, and the Lava Creek Trail near Undine Falls now dead-ends at a missing bridge over the Gardner River.

Safety

The trails to Osprey Falls and Union Falls cross grizzly country, and rangers advise hiking in groups of three or more, carrying bear spray and staying 100 yards from any bear. The ford on the Union Falls trail runs cold, swift and about 40 feet wide in early summer, and a diving injury at a nearby spring-fed pool once required a helicopter evacuation. Silver Cord Cascade's rim above Ribbon Lake drops nearly 1,000 feet, unfenced; stay well back from any canyon edge in the park, especially near spray-slicked rock.