[Geysers] Upper Geyser Basin, 3/30/09

[Karen Low]

Today was a gorgeous sunny day, with very little wind, in
the Old Faithful area. 
After lunch, I biked over to Three Sisters Spring.  Little Brother is erupting about every
minute, with burst to about ten feet. 
The roads are plowed, but the paths are not, so I left the bike at the
rack by Lower Hams.  Between the bike
rack and the main bike path, I post-holed knee deep, since we don't ski that
section of trail, it doesn't get packed down.

 

Little Cub was ie 1231. 
Plume was ie 1235; I caught 3 bursts of it.  There was a large herd of bison grazing
peacefully in meadow in front of Lower Hams. 
I saw bison tracks, coyote tracks, and mouse tracks, but no sign of
recent human traffic.

 

Sawmill group was all quiet, with water sitting in
Churn.  Off in the distance, I caught
Oblong ie 1250.  Rift was on (1252ie),
and the Grand was full, with the islands along the rim looking small.  Old Faithful erupted
at 1302 ns.  Turban was at 1304.  I really wanted to see what was happening
farther down basin, so I didn't wait any longer at Grand.

 

Bijou was erupting constantly, like every other time I've
seen it this winter.  Everything was
quiet at Grotto. Riverside was in
overflow by 1320.

 

At Fan and Mortar, Bottom Vent was splashing when I got
there at 1325.  At 1337, I saw a splash
from Main Vent, so my plans to head back to Grand were instantly
cancelled.  As I moved over to get a
better look through the steam, I noticed it wasn't just Bottom Vent I'd been
hearing; Lower Mortar was also splashing (1341).  River Vent came on at 1343.  Occasional splashing in Main Vent continued.

 

At 1346, I steam cloud off in the distance that I'm pretty
sure was Grand Geyser erupting.  Main
Vent gave a big splash at 1351, and a few minutes later River Vent turned off.

 

Riverside
erupted at 1353, so I went over to the bridge to watch it from there.  At 1401, I heard splashing behind me, and
turned around to se River Vent on, Bottom Vent erupting, and Lower Mortar
splashing.

 

I had to move farther down the boardwalk, to be able to see
around the steam.  At 1408, High Vent
turned on, then Gold Vent at 1409, both looking strong.  At 1410, I saw steam from over the hill in
the direction of Daisy Geyser.  Glancing
up from staring at the vents of Fan, I saw two bald eagles soaring
overhead.  High and Gold continued
strong, with High gaining in height at 1427. 
From where I was standing, I didn't have a view of Angle or Main
Vent.  I really thought it was getting
ready to erupt.

 

At 1433 Grotto Fountain erupted, with Grotto starting by
1445.  By this time, High and Gold had
died down, and just Angle was splashing, so I headed off.

 

Castle was ie at 1500, as I caught sight of it from the
boardwalk near Grotto.  Near the Oblong
 Bridge, I saw the first bluebirds
of spring!  Tardy and Sawmill were ie at
1515.

 

Upstream of the Castle
 Bridge, on the Castle side, I
noticed a bright orange-red mudpot!  It
is only about a foot in diameter, but it does have an orange runoff channel
coming out of it.  I hadn't noticed it
before, and have no idea how long it has been there.

 

Coming down the hill from Castle, I noticed the bison herd
was no longer calmly grazing.  They were
all bunched up, and being chased by a grizzly bear!  I pulled out and my camera, and took a few
pictures, as the bear chased bison across the meadow, and some that went down
by the bend in the river.  But then, as
he paused looking at the two groups of bison, the grizzly turned and looked at
me.  I realized there is no one else
around, I don't have bear spray, and there is a hungry predator.  So I headed back to towards the bike as
quickly as I could!  The grizzly went
back to chasing bison.

 

Karen Low


      
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