Bill-on-the-Hill

All good things must end, including this trip. After a fairly unsatisfactory night in West Yellowstone, we packed up and went back to the Upper Geyser Basin for one last bit of gazing, of which I must make an admission: that great shot of Grand Geyser from my earlier report was actually taken on this day. Poetic license and all that. Still no action from Giant Geyser, so I won't repeat the description of the joys of "the Cage", even though we did spend more time there before heading south. I will, however, make some remarks on geyser-gazer sociology.

The Leader of the Pack (or at least the Herd) in West Thumb Geyser Basin. We didn't want to get too close to this guy, but he didn't seem perturbed by human presence in the least.

Bill-on-the-Hill

The destination (Yellowstone National Park, specifically the Upper Geyser Basin) and goal (geyser gazing, particularly at the elusive Giant Geyser) today were the same as yesterday, so let me dispense with the travelogue and get to the fun stuff: the sociology of the Geyser Gazer, including some really remarkable people, one of whom became our companion for an eerie and memorable evening. Still no Giant, alas, but a day to remember anyway.

Bill-on-the-Hill

Mainly more of the same today, with the main attraction (Giant Geyser) continuing to be coy. There was some fine wildlife watching to go along with the geyser gazing, however, and some excellent advice from the hard-core gazers led to a surprisingly good dinner in a place that I didn't know offered any edible food at all.

Elk wandering along the main trail through the Upper Geyser Basin. These guys (mainly gals, actually) aren't exactly the wildest of beasts; in the original photo, a tagging collar can be seen clearly on one of them. But there is no such thing as a "tame" elk, and I wouldn't really have wanted to be as close to them as the person in the photo, telephoto compression or no telephoto compression.

The awe-inspiring Grand Geyser, which about every 8 hours (with considerable deviations from the average) thunders forth from a tranquil-looking pool to heights that may reach 200 feet. If you can only fit one predicted geyser (other than Old Faithful) into your stay in the Upper Basin, make it this one.

Castle Geyser, so called because of its huge cone. It usually erupts about every 13 hours, although occasional "minor" eruptions can break the cycle for a while. True to our capacity for disrupting scheduled geothermal events, Castle started having a string of minors while we were in the park...

Daisy Geyser in Yellowstone National Park; one of the "predictable" geysers, notable for its frequency (it erupts every 2-3 hours most years) and ease of viewing, which makes it a good subject for the beginning "geyser gazer." Eruptions reach about 60 feet tall.

Bill-on-the-Hill

Labor Day, and the start of some serious geyser gazing. We saw a number of things we had never seen before, and had some close-up wildlife encounters. However, the thing that will stick in our minds from this day, entirely consistent with our experience on the Italian volcanoes, was the one we did not see -- just barely.

Artemisia Geyser, one of Yellowstone's more unusual-looking geysers. Eruptions look as though someone was cooking up a truly humongous batch of spaghetti down below ...

Bison in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, with the Yellowstone Inn in the background.

Atomizer Geyser, a "medium-sized" geyser in Yellowstone's Upper Geyser Basin. You have to do some walking and have some patience to see this one.

Riverside Geyser, Yellowstone National Park. Guess how it got its name?

Bill-on-the-Hill

From here on for a few days, it's geysers, geysers, geysers, so if you're not interested in the subject, I suggest you give this and the next few entries a pass. For that matter, I suggest you seek therapy, because if you can't get into the idea of staring, jaws a-gape, at the spectacle of boiling fountains of incredible scenic beauty bursting from the ground in quantities unparalleled anywhere else on earth, there's probably something wrong with you, IMO.

Lion Geyser, Yellowstone National Park. It's on "Geyser Hill" across the Firehole River from Old Faithful; not a "predictable" geyser, but still a fairly frequent performer and large enough to be worth watching for.

Bill-on-the-Hill

So what is a "geologic roto-tiller"? Well, that's the colorful description applied to the terrain of Yellowstone National Park by a reference work that I'll get back to later (and recommend). Emily and I spent most of the past week at Yellowstone, seeing extraordinary things and meeting extraordinary people, and I will report on the trip at length. This first installment, however, simply deals with getting there, which was not as straightforward as it might be ...