Wanderung 3

Rocky Mountain Ramble

May - July 2003

June 12th - Yellowstone - Upper Geyser Basin, Wyoming

We were up bright and early to see some of the most famous spots in Yellowstone. In particular, we wanted to spend the entire day in the Upper Geyser Basin area of Yellowstone, which has such a variety of different thermal features that it really seems to be a fantasyland. We drove south on the big ring road from Norris down to the parking lot at our first stop, Biscuit Basin. There we joined a Ranger-led walk around the thermal features of the basin and then hiked back along the river to Mystic Falls.

The Ranger had a fishing pole with a thermometer on a line, and he used this to show us the different temperatures in different hot pools. He explained that altho very little could live in the hottest parts of these pools, where the temperature was quite near 199 degrees Fahrenheit, different types of life could live in the water as it cooled down. Some of the most heat-tolerant life was the Archea, primitive single-celled life that dates way back to the origins of life on earth and can tolerate temperatures above 160. At 160 the dominant life was a bacteria that had a yellowish color while at 140 the dominant life was orange in color. Finally, at temperatures of 120 or below greenish algae could grow. This description may sound dry, but the color effects in the thermal features were fantastic. You see concentric blue, yellow, orange, and green rings around the pools or as stripes in the channels for runoff water. I’ve just never seen anything else like it in the world—there really are only a few spots on earth where the underlying volcanism transforms itself into these types of thermal features.

As we hiked up to Mystic Falls, we saw Phantom Falls on a cliff along the old crater wall. The Ranger said we were quite fortunate to see it because it only has water from the melting snow pack for a few days each year, and this was one of those days. He also showed us the skull of a male elk with a full rack of antlers—it was a 6-point rack of antlers and was really quite heavy. Elk apparently arch their neck back when running thru the forest so that the points of the antlers don’t catch on trees, and looking at that huge rack of pointed antlers I could easily see why. That also explains why I’ve seen them portrayed that way in some of the roadside warning signs. Mystic Falls was a nice, medium-sized waterfall with a lot of water tumbling down the mountainside.


 

The Ranger ended his talk at the falls, but he recommended that we take the long loop back to the parking lot that led to an overlook up on the cliff. He said we could get a good overview of the entire Upper Geyser Basin area and if we hurried we would catch the next eruption of Old Faithful geyser across the valley. We took his advice and headed up the trail, stopping rather frequently to catch our breath because we were now over 7,000 feet up. So we didn’t quite make it to the overlook by the scheduled time for the eruption, but we were up on the ridge and found a spot where we had a good view between the trees. Pretty much right on schedule, we saw Old Faithful erupt in the valley below—it was quite far off but it was interesting to have the perspective where you look down at it.

Having seen Old Faithful erupt from a distance, we were quite curious as to what it would look like from nearby, so we scrambled back down the path to drive over to the Old Faithful area. Along the way we ran into a family of buffalo enjoying the geyser area, and they posed patiently while I snapped some pictures from the boardwalk. Then we gingerly walked past them giving them the recommended 25 yards of distance and climbed back into the truck for the short drive to the Old Faithful area.

The Old Faithful area was crowded with tourists, which we did not usually find to be the case elsewhere in the park. We joined the throng that filled two semi-circular rows of benches around the cone of Old Faithful and sat down to wait for the next eruption. The eruption came more or less on schedule and we had the marvelous experience of viewing Old Faithful up close—in fact we were so close that we were spritzed by the water and steam a bit.

That was exciting but we had walked for a couple of hours and we were rather hungry, so we had lunch in the grill while we decided what to do next. Perusing the daily schedule of events we found another Ranger led talk was being offered at Black Sand Basin that afternoon, and we just had time to drive over and join it. Altho the Black Sand Basin thermal area is only a short distance from the Old Faithful and Biscuit Basin areas, the mix of features there was somewhat different—more fountains than geysers. The Ranger warned that the silica dissolved in the water could make deposits on camera lenses, so I was torn between trying to get good pictures of the fountains and trying to protect the lens of Monika’s camera.

The Ranger also discussed the geological history of Yellowstone and showed how the “hot spot” under the earth’s crust had stayed stable while the crustal plates shifted on top of it. From a map of the area it was quite clear that this hot spot had once been under Boise, Idaho, and had gradually shifted over to the present location of Yellowstone Park. Of course, that took millions of years, so Yellowstone wasn’t in any immediate danger of losing the source of the thermal energy! If you ever get to Yellowstone and they still have Ranger walks, take as many as you can—we learned something different from each one.

After the Black Basin tour we returned to the Upper Geyser Basin and walked back into the huge area of geysers and pools in back of Old Faithful. Now the curious thing is whereas about 500 people waited for each eruption of Old Faithful, only about 50 people were back looking at the other geysers and features. It is as if some people think that once you’ve seen Old Faithful, you’ve done Yellowstone, which is definitely not the case! Of course, Old Faithful is nicely visible from farther away too.

We met a man sitting in a chair with a movie camera on the boardwalk beside Oblong Geyser, and I asked him what he was doing. He said he was waiting for Oblong to erupt so he could film it with his digital movie camera. Most geysers are much more unpredictable than Old Faithful, and Oblong is one of them. He had already been waiting hours and was apparently prepared to wait all day if necessary. You have to admire that kind of dedication. It turned out that he posts these digital videos on the web for other people to enjoy, which I thought was quite nice of him—his web site is gigagraphica.com/geyser/ . We left him to his task and continued our walk down the board walk.


 

We were about to turn back when we met a Japanese couple who absolutely insisted that we go see the Morning Glory pool. I mean this lady was very sweet, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer! Now I understand why an old samurai once wrote that the only thing he had ever been really afraid of in his life were the women in his village when he was growing up! We obediently continued to the Morning Glory Pool at the end of the boardwalk. It was quite pretty and well worth the extra walk, but we had been walking over six hours and were really getting tired by this point.

As we started trudging back we heard Oblong Geyser go off. I took the camera and jogged back to the guy on the boardwalk and managed to get a picture of the end of the eruption. I was breathing so heavily you can probably hear me on his video—I hope I didn’t ruin it! The jogging had taken a lot out of me, remember the altitude here was over 7,000 feet, and I was slogging along as we circled back on the other part of the boardwalk to return to the truck.


 

But then we saw the sign that gave the approximate eruption time for Daisy Geyser less than an hour away. So we joined forces with the Japanese couple and (slowly) walked over to the viewing area for Daisy Geyser. The Japanese gentleman set up his camera on a tripod and he and I chatted (his English was quite good, fortunately, as my Japanese is non-existent!), and Monika sat with his wife on the benches at the viewing area while we all waited for the geyser to erupt. If you are ever waiting for Daisy to erupt, keep a close eye on the water bubbling in the two cones just on the edge of it. A Ranger came riding up on his bike and joined us all—he gave us the inside skinny on clues to the eruption even though he cautioned me that these clues can often change each year. Anyway, this year the best clue was that first the bigger cone and then the smaller cone would start bubbling and spouting water—when the smaller cone was energetically spouting water the eruption of the main geyser was imminent.

And what an eruption it turned out to be! Wow! Daisy erupts at an angle of about 70 degrees rather than straight up like Old Faithful, but it is almost as tall and you are a lot closer than they let you get to Old Faithful. Being right next to a geyser really makes a difference—let me tell you that there’s a lot of steam, hot water, and raw energy being thrown up in your face. I had cleared the digital camera of “loser” pictures and had enough space on the chip that I could keep snapping away—the Japanese gentleman took 2 or 3 pictures and then his camera started to rewind! I felt really sorry for him as he fumbled with reloading film—he didn’t get it all set up again until the geyser was dying down again so I hope those first couple of shots were really good.


 

By now we were totally exhausted and we just dragged our butts back to the car to drive back to camp. I was so fatigued I had to be really careful driving and even turning the steering wheel was a distinct effort. I can’t even clearly recall if we ate anything or just fell into bed for the night, but it surely had been a magical day. When we were about ready to turn into Norris campground, we saw a buffalo herd, mommies, babies, and daddy buffalo, on the meadow below The herd slowly moved across a little creek into the campground parking lot and from there through A-loop at the bottom of the hill. We were up on the small hill in C-loop and the buffalo didn’t come our way, but the people in A-loop must have worried about their tents. I later heard a woman ask a Ranger what to do if a buffalo pushes on your tent—since they can weigh well over a ton you can figure that it might be a stressful experience to have one nudging your tent.

Copyright 2004 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog Map Epilog

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