Yellowstone River
— — the longest river that was never dammed.
Not only on a wall.
“The Yellowstone runs 692 miles from a small lake in the Absaroka Range, through Yellowstone National Park, and out across Montana to meet the Missouri at the North Dakota line. It is the longest free-flowing river in the lower forty-eight states. Cottonwoods line the banks below Livingston. Trout hold in the long riffles.
Yellowstone River, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Yellowstone rises at Younts Peak in the Absaroka Range of northwest Wyoming, gathers in Yellowstone Lake, drops through the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone past Lower Falls at 308 feet, then runs about 692 miles to join the Missouri near Fort Union in North Dakota. It is the longest undammed river in the contiguous United States. In Montana it cuts north through Gardiner and Livingston, then bends east across the high plains through Billings, Miles City, and Glendive.
Below Gardiner the river enters Paradise Valley, a fifty-mile stretch framed by the Absaroka and Gallatin ranges. The water runs clear and cold through long gravel riffles that hold rainbow, brown, and the native Yellowstone cutthroat. The June 2022 floods rewrote parts of the channel above Livingston and closed sections of the park's north entrance for months. Wade fishing is best from July through early October once the spring runoff clears. Outfitters from Livingston and Pray launch drift boats daily through the season.
Runoff peaks in late May and June, when snowmelt from the Beartooths and Absarokas turns the water heavy and brown. By mid-July it drops and clears, and the salmonfly hatch moves up from Big Timber toward Livingston. Autumn brings cottonwoods turning yellow along the banks below Pine Creek, and the brown trout begin their pre-spawn run. Winter closes most access; the river stays open and ice-edged through Paradise Valley, where bald eagles and trumpeter swans winter on the side channels.