[Geysers] Bakers May 9-12 trip

[Lotus Baker]

Thank you to all who answered my questions about a May trip with my Dad. We had a beautiful trip, got into the park just after a snow fall and had sunny days! Saw my first bear since the 50's or 60's in Pipeline meadows on the Tuesday afternoon. My dad was able to use his scooter to get around both the Upper Geyser Basin and most of Norris.  I was surprised to not be able to take him to see Great Fountain because the Firehole  Lake  Drive was closed.  We did park along the road and watched the small spouter in the field erupted about on same frequency as Botroidal  and then got a White Dome.  

We caught a Grand on Wednesday (1 burst) and enjoyed the marmots behind Grand as we waited. One of the other visitors said they were showing off their Gucci Tails. We saw two Oblongs that day (one from Grand and  one from Giant),Three Daisy's ( one up close), a couple of hot periods at Giant and a Riverside. Lots of other hot things that ordinarily I would know the names for and I would have sat on but when you only  have  a short time you can't!

Thursday, after a Beehive,  we went up to Norris and Mammoth, dropped off Keith so he could watch  Steamboat and scope out the paths for a scooter. Dad and I did the car tour of the terraces, the spouter near the entrance to the terraces has built up a lot of deposit and isn't spouting as far. Orange Mound didn't have it's spout on top but is still very wet. I would have liked to dive into the woods behind Narrow Gauge to check on the Wedding Cake but didn't!  

Norris was an adventure, most of the trails are dirt and one of the points between board walk and trail had a 3 to 4 inch lip that he couldn't scoot, but just then 3 young men  (who could have been football players)  showed up and the scooter was on the boardwalk!   Pearl was bursting away, it was clearer than last year. Porkchop's side vent was off when we went by the first time and erupting on the back pass. We had a lot of fun watching the new features near the new board walk between Pearl and the boardwalk. The one shoots to two sides with 3 vents (I called it Butterfly) the other is a single vent that flirts. The muddy geyser at the corner of the boardwalk was playing and Yellow Funnel was not a bit yellow as it was busy splashing. We didn't get beyond Green Dragon Spring because of the trail but Keith said we didn't miss any thing as Echinus was just there. We did see a nice Veteran and Dad showed off his 4 wheeling to get there.  Oh and Congress Spring was blue and ove
 rflowing!

Friday the south entrance was open and so we drove out of the Park that way. We enjoyed the snow and made a stop at Lone Pine ( full but not bubbling) saw Occasional then did the loop at West Thumb. The water is low and there was bursting in one of the pools across from Percolator Spring. There is a nice white mud cone near the upper circle of the boardwalk almost in the green grass. Ledge is so low, if it is erupting at this time, it would really have to fill the pool before overflow! The lake was so calm because of the ice, I could see the bottom of the lake out by Lakeside, etc!

So yes,we missed Giant, before and after our visit, but we had a great time and the geysers put on a good show! Dad was impressed and it proved that a scooter is a good thing to have when you can't walk any more. Plus he could go faster then us if he wanted, imagine the dash to Beehive (or Giant) if we all had scooters! 
So back to reading about geysers until Fall and our longer visit!

We did get the April Sput some time while we were there, but still no Feb Sput!


Lotus and Keith Baker
lotusb3 at earthlink.net
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