Finding the Trail from Canyon General Store to the Canyon, in Yellowstone National Park.

Working at Canyon General Store, one thing I am continuously asked is “how do you get to the canyon from here?” I always give driving directions, but one time someone asked specifically on how to find the hiking trail from the store to the canyon.

I had not ever heard that there was a hiking trail that you could take to the canyon.

I felt frustrated that I couldn’t help this person and instead had to say  “I have no idea.”

I asked around at work and some knew of the hiking trail, but not how to find it, or they had previously found it before only from the canyon side.

Kenneth, Declan, and I set out one day to find this hiking trail, and after wondering down many wrong paths, we were successful.

After you know where the trail is, it is actually fairly easy to find, but as always, knowing is half the battle.

I am going to give you step by step instructions with pictures on how to find this trail for yourself, and I will even cover if we enjoyed our hike.

To get to the canyon from Canyon General Store.

When facing the store, look to the left, just past the soda fountain doors and picnic tables there is a paved walkway heading down hill.

It leads you to the road behind the general store.

From there, walk across the road and cross the parking lot that is across the road.

At the back of the parking lot you will find another paved trail, follow it.

It will bring you to another road.

Take a left, you will almost immediately see where there is a cross roads.

At these cross roads there is another trail, almost directly across from you. When you get up to it, it is an obvious trail.

And that trail of course takes you to another road.

All in all, it is probably about a 1 mile hike from the store to the canyon.

At this road, take a left. You will see a crossroads with a dumpster.

At the crossroads, take the road on your right that leads through the cabins.

When you see the cabins, you know you are on the right path.

Walk down the road, through the cabins.

Keep walking down this road until you come to cabins 25/26 & 27/28. Walk between cabins 26 & 27, there is another trail here. This is the final trail that will take you to the Canyon.

It brings you out on the North Rim of the Canyon, between Inspiration Point and Lookout Point.

Don’t worry though, the return trail is clearly marked from the Canyon side.

Our opinion on this hike

It is a good hike if you are just wanting to go and visit the Canyon or if you do not mind paved, well populated trails. However, we prefer to breakaway from the crowd when we hike and get back to nature, this trail only does that in bits and pieces.

We are glad we did it, but it is not a hike we would do more than once.

The North Rim of the Canyon is very pretty, but we actually prefer the South Rim view, specifically Artist Point (see next weeks blog for that hike).

If you are going to do anything on the North Rim, we recommend Red Rock.

You get to the Red Rock trail from Lookout Point.

When you are at Lookout Point and you are looking at the Canyon, look down. Do you see the wooden platform at the bottom?

That is where Red Rock leads to.

To get to Red Rock, walk back towards the roadway. As soon as you come to the end of the concreted pathway, there will be a trail on you left. It is fairly populated so unless you are there in the off season you should see people coming and going.

Follow this trail, it dead ends at the platform and there are no turn offs so you can not really get lost.

But, be careful.

The trail to Red Rock is fairly steep with frequent switchbacks. It is mostly shaded and in some of the switch backs you will see rocks well worn from people sitting and taking a break.

Going down is the easy part, coming back up is a little more strenuous.

The entire round trip is about a mile though, so it is not terribly long, its just a lot of uphill on the return.

We absolutely think this trail is worth it though.

The wooden platform you are on is directly across from one of the falls, I think it is Lower Falls, but I don’t guarantee that.

However, the view is incredible and is the best part about our North Rim hike.

The rest of the views are so much better from the South Rim.

If you do this hike, and next weeks South Rim hike, let me know what you prefer in the comments.

However, along this hike, right next to the Brink of the Lower Falls parking area, we spotted some Elk that were absolutely gorgeous!