Gibbon Falls is a waterfall on the Gibbon River in northwestern Yellowstone National Park in the United States. The falls are located roadside, 4.7 miles upstream from the confluence of the Gibbon and Firehole Rivers at Madison Junction on the Grand Loop Road.
Gibbon Falls has an attractively long and wide cascade on the Gibbon River tumbling a reported total of 84ft in height over or near the caldera rim of the Yellowstone Supervolcano.
With its unusual trapezoidal shape and seemingly brush-like texture, this was one of the more photogenic waterfalls I’ve encountered in the park.
The texture of the falls owed its existence to the underlying Lava Creek tuff, which comprised of ash fused by immense heat as a result of the last Yellowstone Volcano eruption about 640,000 years ago.
The size of the Lava Creek tuff walls surrounding the waterfall as well as some of the cliffs further up the Grand Loop Road provided a humbling sense of scale and magnitude of the volcano.
