[Geysers] Wolfs, Bears, Geysers, and Good Company. A pretty nice opening weekend.

[Kendall.Madsen at onyxgfx.com]

We have really enjoyed reading the report that people have placed on the 
list-server, so in order to pay back a little bit, we offer the following 
report.


We were in the park a week before it closed last year. We left on November 
1 after a week visit and have been patiently waiting, almost 6 month, for 
the spring opening. This was the first time we have visited the park on 
opening weekend and we were determined to go.

We left Ogden, Utah at 3:30 Friday after work and school and arrived in 
West Yellowstone Friday night at 8:30 PM. We grabbed a good night’s sleep 
and woke early (4:50 AM), got ready and drove into the Upper Geyser Basin. 
At Fountain Flats we saw a white wolf along side of the road. We didn’t 
pass or see another person all the way in. 

We arrived at the parking lot by the Old Faithful Visitor’s center at 6:40 
AM. We unhooked the bikes and headed down the basin. 

Grotto was in marathon. We dropped by the giant platform and Bijou was off 
and everything was dead. 

We then went down to Fan and Mortar, noticed that a marker was in place. 
Nothing was happening there so we walked around and observed:

Oblong 0650 
Riverside 0710 
Daisy 0752

At around 0800 Scott Bryan reported over the radio that a grizzly was 
passing between the Inn and the Visitor’s Center. (Apparently there are 
three bears that are frequenting the area, one has a red collar)

We then road our bikes to Castle and walked the boardwalk up to Geyser 
Hill. We spent the next couple hours on Geyser Hill.
We observed:

Plume 0853
Aurum 0948
Depression 1015

We ran over to the visitor’s center when heard Casey called a Beehive 
indicator 10:16 ie we walked out to the platform across the river from 
Beehive to see:

Plume 1052
Beehive 1059

We walked over to Geyser hill and watched:

Plume 1154, 1247
Lion Initial 1321
Aurum 1329
Plume 1343 ns

We then headed down the hill on our bikes. Grotto was still in marathon, 
so we headed down the hill to check on Artemisia. 

We had been waiting at Artemisia for about 2 hours. We could hear on the 
radio that there was a grizzly passing between Castle and Grand and 
heading down the hill. From what we had heard it sounded like the bear 
could be coming our way. 

At 1635 we walked a 100 yards up basin from Artemisia to where the trail 
goes down the hill. We saw the grizzly cross the river by Fan & Mortar and 
head into the trees. We couldn’t see anything for a minute them someone 
called us on the radio and let us know the bear was coming our way and had 
already passed Morning Glory. 

Just then down the trail and 100 yards away breaking into the open was a 
very large black grizzly coming up the hill directly towards us and moving 
quickly.  I told Curtis to follow me and we started leaping over the logs 
heading in the direction of the river. We stopped every few seconds to see 
if the grizzly was following us. We got about 75 feet away from the road 
as the grizzly went by seeming not to even notice us. It was a little too 
close for our comfort. We spent all our time getting out of the bear’s way 
that we didn’t even get a picture.

We decided to go up and check on Grotto. We arrived at Grotto at 1645. 
Grotto’s marathon had ended so we walked over to check on Giant. Bijou was 
still dead. We went back to our bikes which where at Grotto. 

At 1707 as we walked by Grotto there was a large steam cloud down by the 
bridge. Above the steam cloud over the trees water was spraying. There 
were two good burst and lots of steam. We took off on my bike down the 
hill to investigate. 

As we rode down the hill we were surprised to see that the spray was 
actually from link. By the time we stopped in front of link the eruption 
was over. There was very heavy overflow down into the river. The wind was 
blowing and the spray had gotten the asphalt pathway partly wet.   We hung 
out for about an hour but nothing more happened. 

At 18:05 we saw the steam cloud from Artemisia.

We headed up the hill and stopped at Grand. We waited 5 minutes and then:

Grand 1829 two burst

We went back down the hill.
We observed:

Daisy 1939 ie
Riverside 1955 

Oblong 2028 

We went back to the Giant platform to wait for the recovery hot period. 
At 2040 the water started to rise in mastiff.
In less than a minute Feather and Feather satellite came on together.
Surging in Mastiff was to 3 feet with heavy overflow 
By 2044 India was completely covered
The action stayed pretty constant with mastiff dropping to mild overflow 
at about 9 minute. 
The hot period lasted just over 11 minutes

The restart was almost immediate (within second). It lasted about four 
minutes. There was mild surging in the Giant cone. 

By this time it was getting dark. We took a quick look at Fan and Mortar. 
There was nothing going on there so we decided to call it a day.

We had to bike up to the parking lot behind the visitors center because of 
the three sisters cut-off closure.  I wear a Garmin Fortrex wrist watch 
GPS to keep track of the distance we travel each day. The reading for 
today was 21.3 miles, and we felt it, we were pretty tired, but it was an 
exciting and rewarding day.

We left the parking lot at 2145 and headed back to West Yellowstone. Just 
past Midway Geyser Basin we saw a white wolf cross the road.


Sunday April 24, 2005 

We got up later than the pervious day, we need the sleep.

We went into the park and stopped at Fountain Paint Pots to check on 
Fountain. It wasn’t looking promising so we headed over to the Upper 
Geyser Basin. 

We saw Riverside 8:55 ie. 
We check Fan and Mortar it was the same. It was following a cycle but the 
water levels just weren’t there.

We went to Giant and waited to see the next hot period.

Bijou paused and the water began to rise in mastiff. After about 2 
minutes. At 0914, Feather came on. It was followed shortly by feather 
satellite.
Mastiff surged to a foot, but then got so steamy that we had trouble 
seeing it. 
The overflow from mastiff was good, and India was completely covered.
The duration about 8m 45s
The restart was slow and weak.

We saw the steam cloud from Artemisia at 0946 ie

The wind was really strong most of the day. We hung out at Oblong for a 
while but it wouldn’t go.

We rode up to the Parking lot behind the visitor’s center (This was 
getting old). 
We had lunch. And after we heard that Silex spring was empty so we decided 
to head out there. 

As we left we heard on the radio that beehive went at 1226 without an 
indicator.  The indicator was called at 1228.

We went to Fountain Paint pots and watched Silex Spring fill. Some of the 
boiling was pretty violent and impressive. I also noticed a lot of surging 
and boiling in Celestine pool.
The day was getting on and we had to be back to work and school tomorrow 
so we took a quick hike around Black Sands and Biscuit Basin and then 
headed for home. 

This trip was really nice. We really enjoyed the wildlife. The company was 
great; it was very nice to renew some of the acquaintances we have made in 
the last year. The weather was a little windy but not bad. We had a great 
trip and can’t wait to go back. See you in a few weeks.

Kendall and Curtis Madsen 



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