[Geysers] Geyser Gazers (story from Jackson Hole News & Guide)

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Geyser gazers
Volunteers monitor Yellowstone’s natural wonders.
By Kelsey Dayton, Jackson Hole, Wyo.
August 20, 2008

Mary Beth Schwarz didn’t take her eyes off the geyser in front of her. Her jaw was slack in awe as she raised the radio to her mouth.

“Vents overflowing. There are waves on Grand and vent is overflowing.”

Lowering the radio, she urged on the natural wonder in front of her.

“It’s trying. It’s gonna go.”

This summer alone, Schwarz, 61, has seen Grand Geyser in Yellowstone National Park erupt dozens of times. As a member of the Geyser Observation and Study Association, Schwarz volunteers her summers in Yellowstone watching and recording the activity of geysers in the park. No matter how many times she and other “geyser gazers” see an eruption, to them, the boiling of anticipation and the awe of the burst never gets old. Every eruption yields a different height or lasts longer or shorter. 

“It’s like seeing fireworks several times a day,” she said.

Schwarz first came to Yellowstone in 1961. 

“I just fell in love immediately,” she said.

 In 1980, her family began vacationing in the park every summer. In 1987, she met a geyser gazer and joined. 

The summers let the stay-at-home mom with a degree in geology be a scientist again.

Now every June she comes from Dallas to live in Yellowstone and watch the geysers until October.

Schwarz knows Grand Geyser and several of the others so well she can differentiate their eruptions by sound. 

Turbine goes hard and fast. Grand has a big boom and then a whoosh.

Hearing the geysers in the quiet aftermath with the tourists gone, she said, is almost as good as seeing them.

Almost.

“I want to see it above the trees!” Schwarz said as the first burst of water from Grand shot to the sky. “Bigger please.”

As the water hissed and fell, Schwarz picked up her radio.

“Grand at 10:45.”

Recently Grand has had multiple bursts, meaning after the initial eruption comes another, often bigger and better.

Schwarz and the other gazers hushed, watching, willing another burst.

“Come on, baby,” said John Slivka, standing up on a bench in front of the geyser. 

“Get ready,” he said as he noticed waves forming. “Wahoo!”

A woman down the row started to pack up her things.

“Ma’am. Ma’am! Turn around!” he shouted. “This is it!”

The geyser erupted again, higher this time, to applause and hoots.

“That’s what a lot of us wait for, the second burst at Grand,” Schwarz said making a note in the tiny yellow book she carries to document all the geysers’ activity in the almost 40 hours a week she observes.

Schwarz logs information including the time of the eruption and its duration. 

Every year she looks for differences and finds new geysers dormant or active as compared with the year before.

The data is logged in a book in the Old Faithful visitor center and is used to help predict future eruptions. 

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