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The Wyoming Scenic section contains 200 images of scenery from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, housed on five pages. This index page is an Overview with sample images from each of the five section pages followed by a display composite which links to the relevant page.
Wildlife images from Yellowstone National Park are in the Wildlife section.
Click an image to open a larger version. Use your back button to return to this page.
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Geothermal Scenery Old Faithful Geyser Eruption Assorted Yellowstone Scenic
Rivers and Waterfalls of Yellowstone Grand Teton National Park
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Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Photoshelter Scenic Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Yellowstone Geothermal Scenery Grand Tetons
Geothermal Scenery Old Faithful Grand Canyon of Yellowstone Lamar Valley & Misc Scenics Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces
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Midway Geysers Firehole River 0420 16x9
Geothermal steam rises above the Midway Geyser Basin off the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park. The Midway Geyser Basin on the Firehole River contains two of Yellowstone's largest geothermal features: Excelsior Geyser Crater and Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.
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Excelsior Geyser Firehole River 0462
Steam rising above the Excelsior Geyser Crater, an inactive geyser that still manages to release 4500 gallons of 200 degree F. water per minute (6 million gallons per day) into the Firehole River. When it was active between 1878 and 1890, eruptions would reach from 100 to 300 feet high. The geyser awoke after 95 years for a 46 hour period in September 1985, with eruptions of 30-75 feet.
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Mud Volcano Hayden Valley 9092
Cracked mud surrounds craters in the mud pools, while sulphuric steam rises from waters which are rimmed with brightly colored grasses stained by colonies of cyanobacteria in the Mud Volcano area.
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Palette Spring Mammoth Hot Springs 6764
Sunlight reflects off steam rising from the chromatic face of Palette Spring at Mammoth Hot Springs.
Palette Spring is named for the colorful hillside of amber, brown and orange caused by the presence of different thermophilic (heat-loving) cyanobacteria. Water flows from the terraces above down a steep ridge, depositing deep layers of travertine in several interesting and colorful patterns along the hillside.
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Canary Spring Mammoth Hot Springs 6720
Located on the Main Terrace, Canary Spring is named for yellow sulfur-dependent filamentous bacteria growing in the spring. Canary Spring is one of the most regularly active springs in the Main Terrace Group.
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Main Terrace Mammoth Hot Springs 6742
A series of terracettes forming on the Main Terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. In flat areas like these, small pools form and travertine precipitates around the edge, holding the water in the slowly rising pool. Algae forming in the groups of large scallop-shaped terracettes turn the water reddish-brown.
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Click the Display Composite above to visit the Yellowstone Geothermal Scenery page.
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Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Photoshelter Scenic Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Yellowstone Geothermal Scenery Grand Tetons
Geothermal Scenery Old Faithful Grand Canyon of Yellowstone Lamar Valley & Misc Scenics Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces
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Old Faithful Upper Geyser Basin 0384
Steam rising from Old Faithful Geyser and other geysers in the Upper Geyser Basin.
Old Faithful Geyser was named by the Washburn Expedition in 1870 for its regular eruption schedule. While this cone-shaped geyser does not erupt in exactly spaced intervals, its schedule is predictable. Over the years, intervals have increased, possibly because of earthquakes affecting the subterranean water levels. after the 1959 earthquake the interval became radically longer, gradually increasing with later earthquakes. Intervals range from 35 to 120 minutes. Average interval was 66 minutes in 1939, gradually increasing to a 92 minute average interval today. 90 percent of Old Faithful’s eruptions are predictable within a plus-or-minus 10 minute window, based on the length of the previous eruption.
The longer an eruption lasts, the more heat and water are expended from the subterranean reservoir, requiring more time to restore conditions required for eruption. Geyser geezers know to watch the crowds to determine when an eruption is imminent. As the time approaches, people gather around the benches 300 feet away.
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Old Faithful Eruption 9600 M
An Old Faithful eruption on a windy day. The sinter cone around the geyser vent is formed from silica which has precipitated out of the volcanic rhyolite rock and deposited inside the walls of the conduit and outside of the geyser vent, gradually forming a cone over time. The sinter deposited on the walls generally forms constrictions near both ends of the vent. The constriction above the subterranean chamber constricts water circulation, allowing pressure to build up. The constriction near the vent acts as a nozzle, creating a jet.
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Old Faithful at Sunrise 0334
On a calm day, the boiling water of an eruption can be obscured by the huge cloud of accompanying steam.
Old Faithful eruptions can throw 4000-8000 gallons of water between 106 and 184 feet high. Old Faithful is fed from a large egg-shaped chamber about 50 feet underground which leads to a pipe rising at a 24 degree angle towards the maw of the geyser. After an eruption, there is a 15 minute recharge period when water flows back into the chamber. As steam bubbles fill the chamber, they oscillate water in the conduit, eventually leading to a steam explosion. This bubble trap is what causes the smaller eruptions before the major explosive eruption.
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Old Faithful Eruption 0540 M
Old Faithful bursts into life on a day with enough wind to blow the steam away from the erupting water, allowing for more attractive photographs.
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Old Faithful Eruption 0548 M
Boiling water and steam rising more than 200 feet in the air over Old Faithful Geyser in Upper Geyser Basin early one autumn morning in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
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Old Faithful Eruption XXL
A 2000 x 685 version of the XXL Composite image (8276 x 2577) showing a five shot sequence of an early morning Old Faithful eruption.
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Click the Display Composite above to visit the Old Faithful Geyser page.
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Bison Lamar Valley 0517
Bison browsing below a grove of Cottonwoods near Buffalo Ranch in the Lamar Valley.
The Lamar Buffalo Ranch was built in 1907 in an effort to increase the herd size of the few remaining bison in Yellowstone to prevent the extinction of the species. Although there were 30 to 60 million buffalo (American Bison) in North America in the early 1800s, market hunting, poaching and the US Army slaughter campaign designed to remove the food source for Indians to force them onto reservations had reduced the population to 23 by 1902, all of which were in Pelican Valley.
The Pelican Valley herd and 71 Bison from Buffalo Ranch moved to central Yellowstone in 1936 to form the Mary Mountain herd grew to the point that by 1954, the central herd had expanded to 1300 individuals.
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Rose Creek Cottonwoods Lamar Valley 0850
Cottonwoods in full autumn color beside Rose Creek at the Buffalo Ranch in the Lamar Valley.
The northern herd was created at Fort Yellowstone in 1902 using 18 females from Montana and three males from Texas in an effort to avoid extinction of the species, and in 1907 these 28 Plains bison (including four new calves) were rounded up and moved to the Lamar Valley.
Buffalo Ranch was created to grow hay to feed these Plains bison which were brought in from Montana and Texas to augment the Yellowstone herd. The bison grazed freely in summer and were kept in corrals to help them survive the cold winters. In bad weather the bison were fed hay grown next to the Lamar River. When their numbers increased, the Park Service culled the herd, and the ranched bison were added to enhance the growing herd of wild bison. When the herd had reached 1000 bison in 1952, the bison were released to the open range and some were used to start or supplement other herds on public and tribal land. Buffalo Ranch closed in 1952, and the few remaining buildings are used as a field campus by the Yellowstone Association, where field seminars are held and students are lodged.
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Cottonwoods Lamar Valley 0852
Cottonwoods beside Rose Creek in the Lamar Valley in autumn.
Lamar Valley is near the northeast entrance to Yellowstone, and is home to Bison, Pronghorn, Bears, Elk, Coyotes and Gray Wolves (reintroduced in 1995).
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Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone 9107
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Lower Falls of the Yellowstone 0659
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The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the Lower Falls on the Yellowstone River.
The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone at 309 feet tall is the largest volume waterfall in the Rocky Mountains. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is an erosional feature extending for 24 miles from the Upper Falls down to Tower Fall, cutting through rhyolite lava flows from the supervolcano eruption 640,000 years ago. The canyon is only 10,000-14,000 years old, caused when ice dams at the mouth of Yellowstone Lake (which were formed at the end of the glacial period 14,000-18,000 years ago) melted and released a series of massive flash floods which caused immediate and catastrophic erosion of the canyon.
Old Faithful Inn Yellowstone 8669
Detail of one of the rustic balconies at Old Faithful Inn, built from curved and twisted Lodgepole Pine. All logs, branches, and the unusual twisted brackets were acquired from trees 8 miles from Old Faithful. The architect Reamer instructed his crews to search for oddly-shaped limbs of Lodgepole Pine, then matched up sets with similar bends to make peculiar brackets which create a woodsy atmosphere.
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Yellowstone Lake at Sunset 1099
Bison grazing at sunset in autumn, beside the mouth of the Yellowstone River at Yellowstone Lake.
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Sunset over Madison Junction Yellowstone 1132
Red-orange beams pass under the clouds as the sun hits the horizon beyond Madison Junction in autumn.
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Click the Display Composite above to visit the Yellowstone Assorted Scenic page.
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Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Photoshelter Scenic Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Yellowstone Geothermal Scenery Grand Tetons
Geothermal Scenery Old Faithful Grand Canyon of Yellowstone Lamar Valley & Misc Scenics Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces
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Kepler Cascades Firehole River 8667
Kepler Cascades is a series of falls on the Firehole River, about 2.5 miles south of Old Faithful. The cascades fall about 150 feet over multiple drops, the tallest of which is 50 feet.
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Gibbon Falls Yellowstone 6031
Gibbon Falls is an 84 foot waterfall between Norris Geyser Basin and Madison Junction, where the Gibbon River drops over the Northern Escarpment into the Yellowstone Caldera.
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Lower Falls of the Yellowstone 6311
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the Lower Falls from a viewpoint to the right of Artist Point. Offering an exceptional view of the Lower Falls, Artist Point juts out into the canyon from the south rim.
Many people think that this is the viewpoint where Thomas Moran made the sketches from which he created his famous painting “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone”, which was instrumental in convincing Congress to establish Yellowstone as the first National Park. The painting was created from sketches he had made from Moran Point, the viewpoint which was named for him on the 1871 Hayden Survey.
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Lower Falls of the Yellowstone 0665
Lower Falls from Artist Point on the south rim.
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Lower Falls of the Yellowstone 9101
Lower Falls from Lookout Point on the north rim.
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Rapids Yellowstone River 6258
Rapids on the Yellowstone River below the Lower Falls, late winter in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
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Yellowstone River Chittenden Bridge 0655
The Yellowstone River just upstream of Upper Yellowstone Falls, taken from the Chittenden Bridge.
The Chittenden Memorial Bridge is a 120 foot concrete and steel arch bridge on Artist’s Point Road which crosses over the Yellowstone River to the viewpoints over the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The existing bridge was built in 1962 to replace the original 1902 Melan Arch bridge by the park engineer Hiram Chittenden to improve access to the canyon viewpoints. Before the original bridge was built, the only access was by crossing the river at the narrows shown at right center in the image above. This crossing led to Uncle Tom’s Trail, a rough trail created by “Uncle” Tom Richardson in 1898, who led visitors on tours to the South Rim. The 1902 bridge was the first to provide road access. It was replaced with the existing bridge to widen the road for modern automobile traffic.
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Lamar River at Sunrise 0678
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Lamar River at Sunrise 0704
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The Lamar River at sunrise, taken a little over a mile past Crystal Creek near the entrance to the Lamar Valley.
Rose Creek Cottonwoods Lamar Valley 0504
Cottonwoods in full autumn color beside Rose Creek at the Buffalo Ranch in the Lamar Valley.
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Click the Display Composite above to visit the Yellowstone Rivers and Waterfalls page.
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Jackson Lake Mount Moran Grand Tetons 1364
Mount Moran looms over Jackson Lake in the early morning, with the rest of the Grand Teton Range extending to the left of the image. At the far left are Grand Teton, Mount Owen and Teewinot Mountain.
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Colter Bay Jackson Lake Grand Tetons 1017
Mount Moran forms a backdrop to this image of a sailboat on Jackson Lake near Colter Bay. John Colter was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-06, and in later explorations during the winter of 1807-08, he was the first known person of European descent to enter the region of Yellowstone National Park and to see the Teton Range. John Colter was the first mountain man.
John Colter traveled hundreds of miles through the area, alone in the dead of winter, with nighttime temperatures of -30 degrees or lower. He passed by the shores of Jackson Lake and explored the valley of Jackson Hole, crossed Teton Pass into Pierre’s Hole (later famous for the 1832 Rendezvous of the mountain men of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company), then headed north and east to Yellowstone. When he returned to Fort Raymond in March or April of 1808, nobody believed his stories of geysers, bubbling mudpots and other geothermal features. They jokingly referred to the area as “Colter’s Hell”.
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Cottonwoods Cathedral Group Grand Tetons 1072 16x9
The Cathedral Group looms over cottonwoods north of Schwabacher’s Landing in Grand Teton National Park. Left to right are Buck Mountain, Mt. Winter, South Teton, Middle Teton, Grand Teton, Mt. Owen and Teewinot.
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Morning Fog Willow Flats Grand Tetons 1322 16x9
Morning fog over Willow Flats, with the Teton Range in the distance. On the left is the Cathedral Group, including Grand Teton and Mount Owen, Middle Teton and South Teton, Teewinot Mountain and others, most of which are over 12,000 feet, together representing 8 of the 10 highest peaks in the Teton Range. In the center of the image are Mount St. John, Rockchuck Peak and Mount Woodring, and at the right is Mount Moran, which is easily identified by the prominent landmark of Skillet Glacier on its eastern face.
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Mount Moran Morning Fog Grand Tetons 1355
Morning fog over Willow Flats, with Mount Moran in the distance. The prominent shape of Skillet Glacier dominates the eastern face.
Mount Moran was named for Thomas Moran, the artist whose paintings of Yellowstone created from sketches made during the 1871 Hayden Survey were critical to the creation of Yellowstone National Park. His first painting of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872) was purchased by the government for the enormous sum at the time of $10,000, and captured the imagination of the nation.
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Snake River Grand Tetons 1078
The Snake River winds through the valley of Jackson Hole on its way west from Jackson Lake. Grand Teton and Mount Owen are in the center distance. The historic Oregon Trail, laid out by fur trappers and traders between 1811 and 1840, from the Platte River Valley in Nebraska, through the Rocky Mountains and Tetons, along the Snake River to Idaho and on to the Columbia River in Oregon.
The Snake River is the largest tributary of the Columbia River. The region was home to numerous tribes of Native Americans for 11,000 years. By the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Nez Perce and Shoshone were the most powerful tribes in the region. A Shoshone hand sign for Fish was misinterpreted to mean Snake, giving the river its name. John Colter was first European to see the Snake headwaters, although various explorers including Meriwether Lewis had encountered and traveled the western parts of the Snake River earlier. The Snake River became a critical waterway for the fur trappers and later, as a part of the Oregon Trail, for hundreds of thousands of settlers traveling from the east to Oregon.
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Grand Teton Mount Owen 1371
Grand Teton, Mount Owen and Teewinot, with Disappointment Peak at the far left.
Grand Teton, at 13,775 feet, is the highest peak in the Teton Range of the Rocky Mountains. The naming of the mountain range is attributed to early French-speaking trappers in the area, who named the breast-shaped peaks le trois tetons (three teats), and the largest Grand Teton.
Grand Teton was named Mount Hayden by the Washburn Expedition (1870), but the earlier name persisted and it was adopted by the 1901 US Geological Survey map. There is a lot of controversy regarding who first climbed the peak. Although it may have been climbed in 1872 by Nathaniel P. Langford (first superintendent of Yellowstone) and James Stevenson, it was definitely climbed in 1898 by Franklin Spalding, William Owen, Frank Peterson and John Shive. Based upon a description of the climb, it is likely that Langford and Stevenson only reached the Enclosure, a small walled structure erected by Native Americans near the Upper Saddle 455 feet below the peak, beyond which the climb becomes very difficult. In fact, this section nearly killed Owen the year before in his second unsuccessful attempt.
The second tallest peak in the Teton Range (Mount Owen) was named for William O. Owen. The controversy over who was the first to achieve the summit of Grand Teton is probably the greatest in the history of American mountaineering, and it will most likely never be resolved.
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Click the Display Composite above to visit the Grand Teton National Park Scenic page.
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Images in this section are in a number of different Galleries on the Photoshelter website. The Banner below leads to the Photoshelter Scenic Collection where a Gallery can be selected.
Direct Links:
Yellowstone Geothermal Scenery Grand Tetons
Geothermal Scenery Old Faithful Grand Canyon of Yellowstone Lamar Valley & Misc Scenics Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces
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Click the Display Composite above to visit the Yellowstone section in the Wildlife Gallery.
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