America's landscapes, printed big and signed.

Grand Prismatic Spring

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

The photograph looks across the steaming edge of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park's Midway Geyser Basin in Wyoming, taken from a low, ground level vantage point along the spring's rim rather than the elevated overlook trail. Rising steam drifts over the mineral colored runoff channels while forested hills and distant mountains frame the basin under a soft, cloud filtered sun reflected in the still water. Key Features: The Spring: Grand Prismatic is the largest hot spring in Yellowstone and the third largest in the world. The Colors: This spring is remarkable for two reasons: its size, the world's third-largest, and its colors, bands of orange, yellow, and green ring the deep blue waters. The Setting: The spring is located in Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Teton County, Wyoming. The Scale: The 160 ft deep Grand Prismatic is the largest hot spring in the United States.

Grand Prismatic Spring

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Grand Prismatic Spring sits in Yellowstone National Park's Midway Geyser Basin, in Wyoming. The photograph looks across the spring's terraced, mineral-crusted edge from ground level, with steam drifting off the vivid orange and blue water toward a forested ridge under a wide, streaked sky. Key Features: The Spring Itself: It is the largest hot spring in the United States, with a diameter of 370 feet, and the water surges up from a crack deep within the Earth's surface. Global Ranking: Grand Prismatic is the third-largest hot spring in the world. The Colors: The spring is remarkable for its size and for its colors, with bands of orange, yellow, and green ringing the deep blue waters. The Setting: The spring is located in the Midway Geyser Basin and has the distinction of being the park's largest hot spring.

Lion Geyser in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

The photograph captures Lion Geyser in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, viewed from close range beside its weathered sinter cone as steam vents skyward. Sunlight rakes across the mineral-crusted mound while forested hills and the wider geyser basin stretch out behind, with wisps of steam rising from neighboring thermal features in the distance. Key Features: The Lion Group: Lion Geyser is the largest of a group of four adjacent, interconnected geysers, a cluster nicknamed for the roaring sound its eruptions produce. Eruption Behavior: Eruptions of Lion Geyser are accompanied by a loud roaring sound, hence its name, and the geyser sends water up to 100 feet high during active periods. The Setting: The geyser sits within the Upper Geyser Basin, the densest concentration of geysers on Earth, surrounded by lodgepole pine forest and the Firehole River valley. Geologic Feature: Its pale, ridged cone is built up over centuries from silica-rich mineral deposits left by escaping steam and hot water.

Old Faithful

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Old Faithful erupts in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, framed here against the surrounding lodgepole pine forest with a plume of steam rising into a partly cloudy sky. The view shows the geyser's sinter cone in the foreground as a column of scalding water shoots skyward, a sight repeated on a near predictable schedule for well over a century. Key Features: The Naming: Named by Henry D. Washburn on September 18, 1870, the geyser owes its title to its unusually regular timing among Yellowstone's thermal features. The Eruptions: Eruption height ranges from 106 to 185 feet, occurring every 44 to 120 minutes and lasting one and a half to five minutes. The Setting: It sits in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park in Teton County, Wyoming, at an elevation of 7,349 feet. The Legacy: Discovered in 1870 by the Washburn Expedition, it has erupted more than a million times since Yellowstone became the world's first national park in 1872.

Old Faithful

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

This photograph was taken in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, in the Upper Geyser Basin, showing Old Faithful geyser mid-eruption from a close ground level vantage point. A tall plume of steam and boiling water rises from the geyser's cone, surrounded by mineral terraces and a backdrop of dense lodgepole pine forest under a partly cloudy sky. Key Features: The Eruption: Eruptions can shoot 3,700 to 8,400 U.S. gallons of boiling water to a height of 106 to 184 feet, lasting from 1.5 to 5 minutes. The Naming: Old Faithful was named by Henry D. Washburn on September 18, 1870. The Setting: The geyser sits in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone, ringed by conifer forest and pale mineral deposits built up from centuries of eruptions. The Notability: Its unusually predictable, frequent eruptions have made it the park's most famous natural landmark and a symbol of Yellowstone itself.

Old Faithful

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Old Faithful erupts in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, photographed from a close ground level vantage point along the basin boardwalk. The frame captures the geyser's cone at the base, its tall plume of steam and spray rising against a mix of blue sky and clouds, with a backdrop of lodgepole pine forest and a few small figures near the base for scale. Key Features: The Name: Old Faithful was named in 1870 and was the first geyser in the park to get a name. The Eruptions: Eruptions can shoot 3,700 to 8,400 U.S. gallons of boiling water to a height of 106 to 184 feet lasting from 1.5 to 5 minutes. The Setting: The geyser sits in the Upper Geyser Basin, the park's most concentrated collection of hydrothermal features, surrounded by subalpine forest at over seven thousand feet elevation. The Draw: Its remarkably predictable, frequent bursts have made it one of the most visited natural landmarks in the United States.

Old Faithful

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Pump Geyser

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Pump Geyser sits on Geyser Hill in Yellowstone National Park's Upper Geyser Basin, just across the Firehole River from Old Faithful. The photograph looks straight down into the geyser's small, near constantly bubbling vent, framed by thick orange and buff colored sinter mounds built up by mineral-laden runoff and thermophilic bacteria. Key Features: The Name: Pump Geyser was named by Frank Jay Haynes, official park photographer from 1883 to 1916. The Activity: This cone type geyser is nearly constantly active, with small eruptions reaching two to fifteen feet from water around 86 degrees Celsius. The Setting: Like most springs on Geyser Hill, Pump Geyser is filled by boiling alkaline water, and is one of the most active features in the area. The Colors: The vivid orange and tan crusts around the pool are microbial mats and sinter deposits typical of Geyser Hill's hydrothermal features.

Yellowstone Aurum Geyser

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Aurum Geyser bursts to life in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, its plume rising against a backdrop of lodgepole pine forest and a wide summer sky. The photograph captures the geyser at the height of an eruption, with a dense column of steam drifting above the spray while golden mineral deposits ring the vent below. Key Features: The Name: Aurum Geyser is named for the golden staining from iron oxide around its vent and adjacent pour over pool. The Eruptions: The geyser reaches eruption heights of 15 to 25 feet and erupts every three to seven hours, with each eruption lasting about 90 seconds. The Setting: The geyser sits within the Upper Geyser Basin, the densest concentration of geysers on Earth, alongside features such as Old Faithful and Beehive Geyser. The Water: Its underground water reaches temperatures near 197 degrees Fahrenheit before venting explosively at the surface.

Yellowstone

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

This matches the classic scene of Excelsior Geyser Crater's runoff channels flowing into the Firehole River in Yellowstone's Midway Geyser Basin.This scene shows the Midway Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, where the mineral-laden runoff from Excelsior Geyser Crater cascades down a wide sinter terrace into the Firehole River. The vantage point looks across the discharge channel from the boardwalk area toward a forested ridge of lodgepole pine, with the bright orange and rust colored bands marking bacterial mats along the hot water's path. Key Features: The Runoff Channel: The vivid orange and yellow streaks are colonies of heat loving microorganisms that thrive in the mineral rich water as it cools on its way to the river.This scene captures the Midway Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, where mineral laden runoff from Excelsior Geyser Crater spills down a broad sinter terrace into the Firehole River. The view looks from the basin's boardwalk across the bright orange and white discharge channel toward a dense ridge of lodgepole pine under a partly clouded sky. Key Features: The Runoff Channel: The vivid orange and rust colored bands are colonies of heat loving thermophilic bacteria and archaea thriving in the mineral rich outflow as it cools on its way to the river. Excelsior Geyser: Once considered the largest geyser in the world, Excelsior erupted in bursts up to 300 feet high in the 1880s before its violent activity fractured its plumbing and eruptions ceased. The Firehole River: The river takes on steam from the surrounding thermal features, giving it the smoking appearance that inspired its name among early trappers. The Setting: Located near Grand Prismatic Spring, the basin sits within Yellowstone's active hydrothermal landscape, framed by forested hills typical of the park's high plateau.

Yellowstone Elk

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

This photograph was taken in Yellowstone National Park, where a cow elk stands in a sunlit subalpine meadow at the edge of a dense lodgepole pine forest. The animal pauses mid-stride, alert and looking off to one side, framed by tall grasses in the foreground and weathered, fallen deadwood scattered along the tree line behind her. Key Features: Elk in Yellowstone: The park's elk herds spend the warmer months in grasslands, sagebrush steppe, and lodgepole pine forests near rivers and their tributaries, moving between open meadows and timbered cover through the seasons. Preferred Habitat: Elk favor highly productive meadow bottoms for grazing, which explains the animal's presence in this open, grassy clearing rather than deeper in the surrounding pines. Fire Legacy Landscape: Summering elk in northwestern Yellowstone do not avoid areas with dense coarse woody debris in young lodgepole pine forests even years after major fires, a pattern reflected in the downed timber visible at the meadow's edge. Iconic Wildlife Viewing: Yellowstone remains one of the premier places in North America to observe wild elk moving freely between forest and open range.

Yellowstone Geyser

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

This photograph captures a close, downward-looking view into an active geyser vent within one of Yellowstone National Park's thermal basins. The deep, nearly black throat of the vent gives way to brilliant turquoise water where superheated fluid churns and breaks the surface in white bubbles, all encircled by a knobby white sinter rim and pale mineral flats streaked with rust and gold microbial mats. Key Features: The Vent Itself: The dark center marks where near boiling water rises from deep underground plumbing before spilling across the surrounding sinter terrace. Sinter Formations: Geyserite precipitates from near-boiling fluids along the bottoms and edges of hot springs and geysers, with spicular formations building up where splashing water meets the inner rim. Color From Microbes: The vivid hues surrounding thermal pools come from thermophilic, heat-seeking bacteria that thrive in these extreme mineral-rich waters. The Wider Basin: Yellowstone's geyser basins sit atop a volcanic hot spot, where underground heat drives constant boiling, bubbling, and mineral deposition across the landscape.

Yellowstone River

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

The Yellowstone River winds through a quiet stretch of forest inside Yellowstone National Park, framed by dense lodgepole pines on both banks. The vantage point is low, at the water's edge, looking downstream toward a pale, sparsely vegetated hillside that rises beyond a bend, where sun and shadow play across the current and a tangle of driftwood rests in the shallows. Key Features: The River: The Yellowstone River is the park's principal waterway, carrying snowmelt and spring-fed flow through forest and meadow on its route toward the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The Setting: Lodgepole pine, the dominant tree of Yellowstone's high plateau, lines the banks, its shallow roots often leaving fallen trunks in and around the water. The Bare Hillside: The pale, thinly grassed slope in the distance reflects the park's rhyolitic volcanic soils, which resist tree growth and produce the open, eroded hills common along Yellowstone's river corridors. The Character: Calm, clear water and undisturbed woodland typify the park's backcountry drainages, far removed from its famous geyser basins.

Yellowstone Geyser

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Deep in Yellowstone National Park, this close up view looks straight down into a small hot spring vent bubbling within one of the park's geyser basins. A rim of gray and cream colored geyserite, or sinter, encircles clear blue water pushed upward by escaping steam, while bright orange and rust colored microbial mats spread across the surrounding ground. Key Features: The Mineral Rim: Silica dissolved from underground rock precipitates out as the vent cools, building the crusty white sinter lip visible around the pool. The Color Palette: Thermophilic bacteria and algae, adapted to scalding runoff channels, create the orange, yellow, and rust bands radiating from the vent. The Setting: Yellowstone sits atop one of the world's largest volcanic calderas, feeding thousands of hot springs, geysers, and fumaroles across its basins. The Activity: The visible turbulence marks a boiling or near boiling source, where heated groundwater constantly circulates and vents through the opening.

Yellowstone River

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

The photograph captures a quiet bend of the Yellowstone River as it winds through a dense lodgepole pine forest, its clear water gliding over a stony bed lined by sunlit meadow grass. This stretch reflects the river in its youthful stage, still narrow and shallow, well before it broadens into the wide, powerful current found further downstream in Yellowstone National Park. Key Features: The River's Origin: The Yellowstone River begins from melt waters near Younts Peak in the Absaroka Range, where the North and South Forks join to start the river's 692 mile journey. Entry into the Park: The river rises on the slopes of Yount Peak in Wyoming's Absaroka Range and soon enters the southeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park. Undammed Waterway: The Yellowstone is known as the longest free flowing river in the lower 48 states, giving stretches like this one an unaltered, natural character. The Setting: Grassy banks and dense conifer stands typify the park's backcountry corridors, where wildlife and anglers alike frequent the clear, cold waters.

Yellowstone River

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

This photograph looks down on the Yellowstone River as it churns through a rocky, tree lined channel just above Upper Falls, where the river narrows before its plunge into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The vantage point sits along the rim trail near Canyon Village, framed by lodgepole pines on both banks as whitewater rushes between weathered rhyolite boulders. Key Features: The Waterway: This stretch of rapids leads directly to the 109 foot Upper Falls, the first great drop of the Yellowstone River. The Rock: The channel cuts through ancient rhyolite lava flows that later formed the canyon's colorful walls. The Setting: Dense stands of lodgepole pine cover the surrounding hills, typical of the Yellowstone Plateau's high elevation forest. The Park: The area lies within Yellowstone National Park, established in 1872 as the world's first national park.

Yellowstone Sunset

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Somewhere within Yellowstone National Park, this photograph looks out from a high overlook across an unbroken sea of conifer forest toward a distant mountain range as the sun sinks behind banked clouds. A lone lodgepole pine and sagebrush frame the foreground, while sunbeams break through the horizon clouds, backlighting the ridgeline and casting the valley forest into deep blue-green shadow. Key Features: The Forest Cover: Nearly the whole scene is blanketed by dense stands of conifer, reflecting how the park's woodlands are overwhelmingly composed of lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, and subalpine fir growing tightly together. The Mountain Backdrop: The hazy peaks on the horizon belong to one of the ranges bordering the Yellowstone plateau, likely the Absaroka Mountains that rim the park's eastern side. The Light: Sunset in Yellowstone is prized precisely because open meadows and high points offer rare breaks in the tree line where the glowing sky can be fully seen. The Setting: High-elevation overlooks like this one give photographers a rare unobstructed sightline across the park's vast, largely untouched wilderness.

Yellowstone Sunset River

by Rick Billings, Master Photographer

Along the meandering Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley, in the heart of Yellowstone National Park, this photograph looks north across sagebrush meadows and lodgepole pine ridges toward the distant peaks of the Absaroka Range at dusk. The elevated vantage takes in the river's curve through open grassland, with scattered stands of pine leading back to layered mountains fading into evening haze and cloud. Key Features: The Valley: Often considered the heart of Yellowstone, Hayden Valley is found in the middle of the park. The Geology: The floor of Hayden Valley is full of fine-grained lake sediments from the prehistoric lake; these are overlaid for glacial till from the most recent glacial retreat around 13,000 years ago. The Wildlife: It's an iconic viewing spot for wildlife such as buffalo, grizzly bears, and elks. The Waterway: Hayden Valley, located in Yellowstone National Park, is a picturesque area with vast meadows along the Yellowstone River.