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Crystal Falls

Waterfall Between Upper and Lower Falls

Waterfall on Cascade Creek on North Rim Trail in Yellowstone NP, Rocky Mountains near Canyon Village, WY

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Waterfall Type

Multi-step, Plunge, Fan

Geographic Name Origin

During the 1870 Washburn Langford Doane Expedition, Nathaniel Langford credited Cornelius Hedges for naming Crystal Falls located downstream from their campsite in the twisted gorge referred to as “The Devil’s Den” that Cascade Creek had carved on its steep descent to the Yellowstone River. (Langford 1905, 27-28)

On our walk down the [Cascade] creek to the river, struck with the beauty of its cascades, we even neglected the greater, to admire the lesser wonders. Rushing with great celerity through a deep defile of lava and obsidian, worn into caverns and fissures, the stream, one-fourth of a mile from its debouchure, breaks into a continuous cascade of remarkable beauty, consisting of a fall of five feet, succeeded by another of fifteen into a grotto formed by proximate rocks imperfectly arching it, whence from a crystal pool of unfathomable depth at their base, it lingers as if half reluctant to continue its course, or as if to renew its power, and then glides gracefully over a descending, almost perpendicular, ledge, veiling the rocks for the distance of eighty feet. Mr. Hedges gave to this succession of cascades the name “Crystal fall.” It is very beautiful; but the broken and cavernous gorge through which it passes, worn into a thousand fantastic shapes, bearing along its margin the tracks of grizzly bears and lesser wild animals, scattered throughout with huge masses of obsidian and other volcanic matter – the whole suggestive of nothing earthly nor heavenly – received at our hands, and not inaptly as I conceive, the name of “The Devil’s Den.” - Langford 1905

— Langford

Historical Field Note

Lt. Gustavus C. Doane who provided the military escort for the 1870 expedition also descended Cascade Creek on August 30th, with his chronically swollen and infected thumb seeing Crystal Falls.

As we approached the Grand Canyon a dull roaring sound warned us that the [Upper and Lower] falls were near at hand. I had been suffering greatly during the forenoon, being obliged to gallop from one spring to another to keep wet the wrappings of my hand. Following this canyon kept me away from water so long that the pain became utterly unsupportable. I abandoned my horse, and have no distinct recollection of how I got to the water’s edge, but presently found myself with my arm up to the elbow in the Yellowstone a few yards below the foot of a graceful cascade. In a few minutes, the pain becoming allayed, I proceeded to explore the locality. I had descended the canyon at a point where the creek joined the river, precipitated into a gorge just above its juncture in a lovely cascade of three falls, in the aggregate 100 feet in height. This was named Crystal Cascade, and the stream Cascade Creek. (Doane 1873, 12)

— Doane

Photographs

Historical Photographs

Artistic Representations

Depicted above is Crystal Falls by Thomas Moran of the 1871 Hayden Survey.

Above Crystal Falls photograph provided for artistic representation purposes.

Further Research and Reading

Scott, K.A. Yellowstone Denied: The Life of Gustavus Cheyney Doane. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.

Sources

Doane, Gustavus Cheyney. Letter from the Secretary of War, Communicating the Report of Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane upon the so-Called Yellowstone Expedition of 1870. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1873. http://archive.org/details/letterfromsecret1873unit.

Langford, Nathaniel Pitt. Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870. St. Paul, Minn., [c1905]. http://archive.org/details/diaryofwashburne00langrich.

Rubinstein, P., L.H. Whittlesey, and M. Stevens. The Guide to Yellowstone Waterfalls and Their Discovery. Edited by Jennie Shortridge. Englewood, CO: Westcliffe Publishers, 2000.

Taxonomy

Classified As

Waterfall

Waterbody

Cascade Creek

Creek