Why does Yellowstone have so many unknown and undiscovered falls?
There are several reasons for this. The most important reason is simple. Yellowstone National Park was created so early in our nations history that people stopped exploring there. A very large tract of land was “taken out of circulation” in 1872. That insured the lock-up of beauty and protected the features from the inevitable, gradual discovery by settlers, which would have occurred anywhere else. It also slowed prospecting, poaching, and the general curiosity of those trying to make a living here. Yellowstone is geographically remote. Even today, the park remains far from the urban centers of the nation. The southeast corner of the park contains the most remote wilderness (distance from a road of any kind) in the lower 48 states. Yellowstone is huge. At 2.2 million acres it larger than some states. Flowing through it are no less than 500 rivers and creeks, some of them in very tricky areas to navigate. To date only about a third of them have been surveyed in their entirety. Travel ar
