[Geysers] 10/12/09 geyser update/ Ferris Fork

[Seeyellowstone at aol.com]

I will try to get you geyser info now that almost everyone is gone  now.
 
Today (10/12/09)
 
Fountain 9:39 ie & 15:43 ie
Till 10:16 ie
 
Here is my report on the Ferris Fork that I have promised:
 
On 09/01/09 we started the day traveling by into the park, we had a chance  
to catch Great Fountain on the way to the trailhead, so we did of course. 
It was  good to see Lynn, Bill and others before we started our trek.  Bill 
had  informed me that Tera was in Shoshone, and I was hoping to get there 
before they  left, however, we had met them on the trail as we were heading in 
they were  heading out.  We had missed Lone Star by about 1/2 and hour (the 
time we  used at Great Fountain) and since we had somewhat of a late start, 
we had  decided to continue on. We had decided to set up camp at 0G1, before 
heading  down to Shoshone Geyser Basin.
 
At Shoshone, we had watched several eruptions of Minute Man and a couple  
eruptions of Velvet.  With thunderstorms brewing we had decided to walk the  
2 1/2 miles back to camp.
 
09/02/09- This is the major day of uphill, a 7.3 mile trek up onto and  
across the plateau with a big drop into the Bechler River Canyon. Along the way 
 we would be treated with views of Twister Falls, Tempe Cascade & Ragged  
Falls, which is about 500 yards from our camp 9D1. On the plateau before we  
dropped into the canyon involved almost a mile of wading through ankle to 
knee  deep swamp, thank god for the hot bath later that night at Mr. Bubbles. 
This is  one of my favorite campsites, as it is in the middle of the Ferris 
Fork Geyser  Basin.  The sight it self has you camping on one side of the 
Gregg Fork,  with our bear pole and pit toilet on the other side of the river. 
Next to the  log that you use to cross the river is a huge colorful hot 
spring bacteria  mat cascading down into the river.
 
The Middle Basin Group of the Ferris Fork Geyser Basin is located at the  
campsite 9D1 and up stream 100 yards up the Gregg Fork River.  This group  
has no geysers that I have witnessed, but does have several very colorful  
springs dropping into the Gregg Fork. Many of these springs are difficult  to 
access because of the steep gorge the Gregg Fork is rushing through.
 
09/03/09-  This would be an easy day of checking out the basin, and of  
course another soak. At first the spur trail travels through several fairly  
hot springs along a flat area. Below is a list of the geysers and  springs of 
note starting for the trail junction and heading up stream (Ferris  Fork).  
There are at least 2 dozen hot spring that it did not mention  below.
 
UPPER BASIN:
1. As trail then begins to climb, there is a very beautiful spring, which I 
 call Zealous, because of it's frequent and heavy boils up to 3 to 4 feet 
in  height. The spring itself has 3 connected pools on top, with the one 
closest to  the river (Ferris Fork), constantly boiling similar to the boiling 
of Crested  Pool or Great Fountain during the meter boil.  The pool would 
then calm  down for a second or two, just to boil up again 1 to 2 feet high, 
with boils up  to 3 to 4 feet high about every 2 to 5 minutes or so.  There 
are 3  channels of heavy water discharge from this spring, as well as a good 
amount of  rock deposit. The water cascades about 3 vertical meters down into 
the river,  the colors on this spring are an amazing green and peach, as 
well as  orange.  Part way down one of the 3 runoff channels the rock has 
built a  beautiful terrace, a little over a meter in size, which spreads the 
water out,  similar to the terraces at Mammoth.
 
2.  This small geyser was a perpetual spouter last summer when I was  
there, and was dormant this year.  Last year this mound of geyserite, which  is 
about a meter high had a 2 foot long crack which was playing a fan of water  
about 3-4 feet high and about 3 feet wide.  This year the crack was lined  
with sulphur crystals and dry.  This spring is located directly across the  
river from spring #1. 
 
3.  At the base of spring #2 is a small pool which last year was  erupting 
near perpetually and this year was calm.  I did not see any  activity out of 
spring #2 or 3 on this year's trip.
 
4.  New Geyser at Mr. Bubbles.  Last year in late September,  about 3 weeks 
after we were there last year, a new geyser formed about 1 meter  above the 
backside of Mr. Bubbles. Ken who is a backcountry  Rangers in the Bechler 
District, had told me that this new spring was erupting  near perpetually at 
about 4 feet high for several weeks after it had  formed.  They were afraid 
that they would have to close down Mr. Bubbles as  it became way too hot 
because of this new spring and it's meter high waterfall  into the waters of 
Mr. bubbles.  Several visitors had built several new  rock walls into the 
Ferris Fork to create a new place to soak.  This year  the park service was in 
to remove the new walls as this spring is no longer  erupting, and Mr. 
Bubbles became ok again this year to soak in.  This  spring has become a frying 
pan type spring and has a small waterfall  similar to Riverside's overflow.
 
5.  Dyslectic Spring:  this spring is not a geyser, but a weird  spring, 
which is located just up the faint trail beyond Mr. Bubbles.  There  is a hot 
spring just above this spring with a good over flow, which flows down  the 
hill into Dyslectic Spring.  The bacteria in the runoff is orange  turning 
brown.  Dyslectic Spring is about 2 feet in diameter and  is bright blue and 
hot, with the exception of the cooler water from the spring  above creating a 
small bacteria mat as the cool water flows into the pool.   Here is the 
weird part, even with the runoff flowing into this spring, there is  no outflow 
beyond Dyslectic Spring, meaning all of this runoff pouring into  Dyslectic 
must be draining into Dyslectic's plumbing system.  Just when I  had 
thought I had seen it all.
 
6.  This is the only true geyser I was able to observe.  It is  located up 
just upstream from #5, and across the river. This geyser is located  in the 
riverbed and is likely underwater during the spring runoff. I could tell  it 
was a geyser because of the fresh trail of sinter in the runoff channel  
across the rocks. As I was watching the two perpetual spouters right next  to 
it, after about 40 minutes of sitting there, I was treated to an eruption  
about 4 to 5 feet high with a duration of 1 minute, 32 seconds.  I  decided  
would wait for another eruption, after all, this year I am  spending the day 
in this basin, after last year's mistake of not having enough  time. With 
an interval of 3 hours, 42 minutes, I did get a second eruption,  about 3 
feet high and lasting about 52 seconds. After the second eruption I  would 
retire to Mr. Bubbles for some more R & R as we are 14 miles into our  journey.
 
7.  This is a small perpetual spouter, also in the riverbed about 3  feet 
from #6.  This spouter is in a small pool about 1 foot in diameter and  
splashes about 1 foot high.
 
8.  This is a small spray of water about a foot in every direction  located 
about 1 1/2 feet from #7 and is about 1 foot from the river.  This  is 
likely a fumarole spraying river water from just below the rocks.
 
Because our campsite 9D1 has a one night limit, we would pack up camp and  
move 1 mile downstream to 9B9, which is located at the base of a huge water  
fall, Albright Falls. Between 9D1 and 9B9 is the lower basin of the Ferris 
Fork  Geyser Basin. 
 
The Lower Basin is along the Bechler River just downstream of the campsite  
9D1 and the confluence of the Gregg Fork, Ferris Fork and Phillip's Fork. 
This  group has no geysers that I have noticed, however, the springs stretch 
almost  the entire mile between the two campsites and had several large hot 
springs,  many with extremely thick bacteria mats feeling up off of the 
floor of the  pools. The Lower Basin does not have near the heat of the Middle 
or Upper  Basins. 
 
After setting up camp at 9B9, we would have to walk a mile down stream to  
get way from the thermal water, and we would have refill our water jugs in a 
 very cold freshwater spring.  This trek involved fording the Bechler River 
 twice to get to and from best tasting water of the trip (along with the 
spring  Tera showed me a few years ago near 0G1, which we also used to refill 
our  water).  Good water across the plateau is limited, and didn't taste 
nearly  as good as the water from OG1 or the spring downstream from 9B9.
 
09/04/09:  Day 4, would be another fairly easy one, which began by  hiking 
one more time up to Mr. Bubbles for a final look at all three  basins.  
After about 3 hour we walked the 2 miles (from Mr. Bubbles) back  to 9B9 to pack 
up camp and begin the journey downstream into the Bechler River  Canyon.  
We would have to ford the river twice on our way to our next  campsite 9B5.  
Along the way we would refill our water bottles at the same  spring as 
before.  There are a couple of small cascades just up stream and  downstream of 
our second ford, and just before our campsite we were treated with  the large 
drop of Iris Falls on the Bechler River. 
 
After setting up camp, we walked the 1/4 mile downstream to double drop of  
Commnade Falls on the Bechler River.  Between Iris and the double drop of  
Commnade Falls the Bechler River drops at least 300 feet within a mile. Our  
campsite was in the middle of these drops.  This would also be the first  
night we are alllowed to have a fire.  Oh well, it was the last night and  we 
were exhausted, so we ate and went to bed, no fire.
 
09/04/09:  Day 5, the final day, also the longest day.  We would  pack up 
early and begin the drop to the mouth of the Canyon. Along the way we  would 
run into a park trail crew, who was doing a great job on the trail, which  
had been swampy since 9D1 from dozens of cold and warm water springs crossing 
 the trail. This crew of four had dug out a boulder about 3 X 4 feet in 
diameter  which I remember last year was a 3 foot drop on the trail.  It took 
them 2  days to get it out. At one point they had thought they may have to 
blow it out.  Ken had told me a lady last year fell off of this rock nearly 
ripping her leg  off at the knee. I remember this drop last year and was 
warning the rest of my  group about it, however, the trail crew was able to 
remove the rock a couple of  days before we go there.  I can imagine how the 
horses negotiated this  obstacle. I will not miss that rock, there was just no 
way around it.
 
The first 2 miles we were treated with plumb, ripe raspberries, salmon  
berries and strawberries, with the occasional huckleberry.  What a treat  after 
4 days of freeze dried meals (which really are pretty good).
Once we arrived in the Bechler Meadows, we had a great view of ouzel falls  
on the opposite wall of the canyon.  At this point all three of  us were 
separated by about 100 yards each, with me in my traditional position of  last 
place.  We had seen some fresh black bear scat complete with a berry  on 
top of it, and it wasn't 200 yards later I saw a small black bear about 20  
feet off of the trail.  Both of my hiking partners walked within 20 feet of  
the bear without knowing it.  I would not of seen the bear either  it had not 
stepped out of the tall brush as I was walking by.  I  yelled bear to let 
the others know that there is a bear in the  area, this of course scared the 
bear and he bolted as fast as he could into  the trees.
 
We would have our last ford in the Bechler Meadows, where we also decided  
to heat up another meal before heading out.  It seemed like we ran into at  
least 20 people, including Katy Duffy who were on the way to Dunanda Falls.  
After 3 days of seeing only 4 people, it was becoming evident we were 
nearing  civilization, if you can call the Bechler Ranger Station civilization. 
 
After arriving back to the car we have calculated that we have travel a  
total of 40+ miles on foot, with about 28 miles with a pack. I'm  already 
looking forward to next year when I do it all over again. I think I may  have 
Steve Eide talked into going. I'm thinking about a second extra day in  the 
Ferris Fork Geyser Basin, after all how often do you have a geyser basin to  
yourself?  
 
Jim
YTG
 
Excuse the typos, it's late.
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