About Crecelius Cascade
Crecelius Cascade was a roadside waterfall that we managed to miss on our first visit to Yellowstone National Park back in June 2004. It consisted of a smaller pair of cascades dropping in succession with a cumulative height of 75ft. For such an easy-to-access attraction, it was also quite an unheralded one (part of the reason why we overlooked it on our first visit). Perhaps it was because the falls was unsigned, and it didn’t seem like the East Entrance Road was all that busy compared to the other entrance roads throughout Yellowstone National Park. The waterfall was named by road engineer Hiram Chittenden after S.F. Crecelius who was his foreman in charge of the road passing before the falls. By the way, the name Chittenden may be familiar because the bridge over the Yellowstone River leading to Artist Point just south of Canyon Junction happened to bear his name. This waterfall may have had other names like “Eleanor Cascade”, “Leonora Falls”, and “Snow Fall”.
I was able to spot this waterfall after walking to the eastern end of Eleanor Lake (and as you’ll see from the directions below, I didn’t even have to make this walk). There was a short trail-of-use leading right up to the Crecelius Cascade once I spotted the falls. From closer to the road, I was able to clearly see both of the drops of the falls, but when I got up close, the upper drop was hidden behind the wall supporting the lower drop. The waterfall was said to be seasonal though it seemed to have fairly decent flow during our August 2017 visit (though that could be attributed to the high snowpack that resulted from heavy precipitation over the Winter and Spring months).
The Crecelius Cascade was on the road between Fishing Bridge and the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The pullout nearest to the waterfall was on the east end of Eleanor Lake about 7.7 miles west of the East Entrance and 18.3 miles east of Fishing Bridge Junction. If you happened to go as far east as Sylvan Pass like we did, then you missed it. In case you’re uncertain about which unsigned pullout would be the correct one, there was also a signposted parking area on the west end of Eleanor Lake, and this was where we happened to park (which meant I had to walk along the road to the other side of the lake).
The Fishing Bridge Junction was also about 15.5 miles (30 minutes drive) south of the Canyon Junction, about 21 miles (30 minutes drive) northeast of the Fishing Bridge Junction, about 78 miles (over 90 minutes drive) west of Cody, 99 miles (over 2 hours drive) north of Jackson, and 55 miles east of West Yellowstone, Montana.
For geographical context, West Yellowstone was 58 miles (at least 90 minutes drive) south of Gardiner, Montana, 90 miles (over 90 minutes drive) south of Bozeman, Montana, and 321 miles (about 4.5 hours drive) north of Salt Lake City, Utah.
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Sweep checking out the falls from a distance before walking right up to its base and looking back towards the East Entrance Road
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