Undine Falls in Snow, Yellowstone National Park

(Click image to enlarge)

I captured this photograph early on a bitter cold -10°F (-23°C) mid-October morning immediately after photographing Electric Peak in pre-sunrise dawn light. The park roads were not plowed but miraculously they hadn't closed them yet. As I photographed the waterfall my vehicle was nearly stuck in the roughly 66 cm (26 inch) snow drifted over the pull-off and I was very sick with a bug someone gave me a couple of days earlier. I wasn't having fun, but it was otherwise a gorgeous morning.

Undine Falls was originally called “East Gardner Falls,” “Cascade Falls of the East Gardiner,” or “Gardiner River Falls”. It received the current name in 1885 from geologist Arnold Hague. Undine Falls (pronounced UN deen) was named for wise and typically female water spirits from German mythology. They lived around waterfalls and could gain souls by marrying mortal men.

Undine Falls is on Lava Creek and spills over a basalt cliff that formed in a lava flow about 700,000 years ago. The falls makes three plunges that total approximately 18.3 meters (60 feet) in height.