South Rim Drive crosses the Yellowstone on Chittenden Bridge and runs out to the Upper Falls Viewpoints and Artist Point, where the road ends. It is two-way, so drivers return to the same junction and turn right. Both rims show the Lower Falls, so those short on time can choose one, and North Rim Drive is the next choice up the road.
Half a mile ahead, the right turn over the Yellowstone is South Rim Drive. Short on time? One rim will do, because both show the Lower Falls. Take this one across Chittenden Bridge and the first left is the Upper Falls Viewpoints lot, with restrooms. Artist Point is about a mile past that, where the road ends. It's two-way, so you come back here and turn right, and the canyon overall deserves one to two hours. Stay on this road and two more rights come up. The first is a short spur to the Brink of the Upper Falls. The next, about a mile and a half from here, is North Rim Drive, and that's the easy one, because it runs one way and brings you back to Canyon without doubling back. South Rim Drive exists because a superintendent wanted it. In eighteen ninety-six Captain George Anderson decided visitors should see the canyon from the east bank. The bridge you'd cross isn't the first one here. The nineteen oh three arch was condemned by nineteen fifty-nine, and a later superintendent promised no slavish copy. There are two falls in there. The Upper Falls drops a hundred and nine feet and the Lower Falls three hundred eight feet. The canyon bends between them, so no one place shows you both. The green stripe on the Lower Falls is the natural color of the water, where a notch in the lip keeps it deep enough not to froth.
Photo: NPS Photo / Jim Peaco, 1994 · Public domain (NPS; PD-USGov-NPS)