Yellowstone’s Geysers

I haven’t said enough about Yellowstone’s geothermal features. Everyone knows that Old Faithful geyser is here. The typical Park visit includes seeing it erupt. Drive up to the Old Faithful complex, sit for the next eruption (every ninety minutes, plus or minus ten), then move on.

Castle Geyser eruption, June

Yet, there is so much more to it. Nearly half the geothermal features on the planet are here in Yellowstone National Park.  A concentration of them is strung along ten miles of the Firehole River in full view as you drive the Grand Loop Road.

Old Faithful sits at the head of Upper Geyser Basin, a two-mile long band of geysers, hot springs and pools. A pathway system weaves through them all, taking you out into a majestic other-world. Nowhere else have I felt the presence of the earth, our one and only Planet Earth, so strongly.

Thermal vents, Biscuit Basin along Firehole River

In the cool, still air of Rocky Mountain mornings, steam rising from geysers and vents lingers all around. Not just the named, designated geothermals…I mean everywhere. In the field beyond a main parking lot; all along the entrance road to Old Faithful Inn. You feel the dynamic presence of a living, active planet.

Powerful, too, is this immense source of heat that still boils water at the Earth’s surface 640,000 years after Yellowstone’s last cataclysmic eruption. Forty miles to the north on the road to Mammoth Hot Springs, this heat has literally torn a mountain apart. The broad flank of Roaring Mountain, several hundred feet tall, is little more than a steaming pile of rock rubble. It is a great reminder of Earth’s connections with the cosmos, and the sheer improbability of life as we know it.

Evening rainbow in a Riverside Geyser eruption

Many of the geothermals have descriptive names, derived from a unique feature, formation, or pattern of activity. Castle…Riverside…Grotto…Morning Glory Pool…Sawmill…Artemesia…Grand Prismatic Spring…Ojo Caliente…Tangled Creek…Anemone.

Chinese Pool, Upper Geyser Basin

An evening’s walk along the boardwalk in one of the Firehole’s geyser basins is a real treat. You are surrounded by the beauty of Earth’s elemental geology, wrapped in the silent power of the planet’s dynamic presence. What a blessing to be alive. Here. Now.