[Geysers] Ferris Fork Oct 1-6 2010

[Stephen Eide]

Greeting and Salutions,



This is a very late trip report from a hike I took with Jim Holstein on
October 1 to 6, 2010 from OK1 (Lone Star trailhead) to 9K1 (Bechler Ranger
Station).  I was late starting out so we did not get to visit Shoshone
Geyser Basin but we did spend part of two days in the Ferris Fork thermal
area.  I thought Rocco Paperiello and Marie Wolf had written about the area
but I could not find it in the index to *Report on Lesser Known Thermal
Features of Yellowstone National Park* so I guess I will just give a
narrative of what features we saw.  Jim had been in the area twice before in
2008 and 2009 so I am including some of the information he gave me from his
previous visit also.



Just as background, the Ferris Fork Thermal area is about half a mile
upstream from three rivers junction where Phillips Fork, Ferris Fork, and
Gregg Fork meet to form the Bechler River.  There are also many more hot
springs from three river junction several miles down the Bechler river but
most of them appeared to be cooler, or at least not close to boiling.  However
for the most part we just walked past the features on the Bechler River and
made no attempt to visit the hot springs on the far side of the river.  The
Ferris Fork Thermal area is about 15 miles from either end of the trailhead.




You walk about 500 meters from the junction with the Bechler trail until you
meet the first thermal area.  This area is about 150 meters east to west and
about 50 meters wide.  Ferris fork is the right (south) border of the area
and a thermal stream is the left (north) border.  The area runs mostly west
to east.  There are three sets of hot springs in this area, none looking
like they could erupt with their current activity.  Just as you enter the
area the trail drops down an incline about six feet and crosses the thermal
stream.  Just after you cross this stream there is a hot spring on your
right, shallow, maybe an inch or two deep with many bubbling vents in a fine
gravel bottom.  The temperature is below boiling, I suspect around 150 or
160 from the lighter bacteria growing in the pool.  If you turn right before
you cross the thermal water and walk about fifty meters to the south-west
you reach another hot spring, it is deeper and appears hotter although I
don’t think it was quite boiling.  It was bubbling vigorously.  Grass was
growing down to the edge of the pool.  One point about the Ferris Fork
Thermal area, all most all of the springs had strong bubbling, there seems
to be a significant amount of gas evolution in almost all the springs in the
area.



The last spring in this first thermal zone is in the back-left of the area
(north-east).  It is a series of many springs with one vent in the middle
most active and the rest with minor to no bubbling/boiling.  The main vent
there appears to be boiling however I cannot be sure.  There is a steady
stream of water from these springs that I talked about earlier.  Grass was
growing to the edges of all the vents.



As you continue on the trail you pass through about 80 meters of non-thermal
land before reaching the next set of thermal features.  Ferris Fork goes
around a bend so for the remainder of the thermal zone Ferris Fork is
running mostly south to north.  The next thermal area you reach is two sets
of springs on both sides of Ferris Fork.  On the far side of the river (west
side) is a large constantly boiling pool Jim tells be is call Zealous
Spring.  And on the near side of the river (east side) is an unnamed pool
and sinter area with two features that did not erupt for us on this trip but
features that Jim has seen erupt in the past.



First Zealous Spring, this is one of the most impressive features in Ferris
Fork, at first it appears to be one pool but when you are close you can see
it is three interconnected pools with the pool closest to Ferris Fork the
only one with an active vent in it.  And it is very active, constantly
boiling two to four feet high with occasional higher boils.  In some ways it
resembles Crested Pool but the boil is more like the one-meter boil on Great
Fountain.  There is a constant heavy outflow both over the lip of the pool
and through some covered sinter tunnels that pop out in the sinter shield
below the pool.  There is an overflow terraced pool in the sinter between
the pool and Ferris fork that will remind you somewhat of the terraces at
Mammoth.  After looking at sinter overflow channel I would not recommend
walking on it, it has several covered channels in it that pop up here and
there containing boiling water.  The sinter is very white, which is another
feature of the Ferris group as a whole; most of the sinter in the area is
very white in color.



The grassy area just south of Zealous Spring is interesting also.  There is
an area of grass covered ground that appears to be very soft with constant
gas bubbles coming up through the grass.  When I stepped on the edge of it I
got the impression of a quicksand-like area, firm looking with grass on top
but with lukewarm thermal mud underneath.  However, I did not walk on it so
I am unsure how correct this impression was.



In the area on the east side of Ferris Fork across from Zealous Spring and
between the trail and Ferris Fork is the second area of hot springs.  According
to Jim two of these springs erupted in some manner in 2008..  The first
spring was erupting out of a crack across the top of some sinter as a
perpetual
spouter in a fan shape to 2-4 feet high in 2008 but was quiet in 2009 and
quiet when we visited in 2010.  The other erupted out of a small pool to the
left and forward of  the fan shaped spring (from the trail) with a height of
1-2 feet and an interval of a few minutes in 2008.  It also was quiet in
2009 and 2010.



The next feature you reach is Mr. Bubbles, an amazing hot spring on the edge
of the river with part of the river flowing into it.  Mr. Bubbles is roughly
circular with a diameter of 10-14 meters by my guess.  A hot water creek
flows into it from the east.  The water in the creek has green mats in it
but is to hot to keep you hand in, or do more than just touch it.  There is
another small geyser/spring on the east edge of Mr. Bubble with a light
overflow into Mr. Bubbles but I will talk about it later.  Ferris Fork flows
into Mr. Bubbles from the West.  In the middle of Mr. Bubbles is a bubbling
vent, not boiling, but constantly giving off gas bubbles.  They cause the
ground to thump and vibrate constantly.  You can hear Mr. Bubbles (and feel
the ground vibrate) for 10-20 meters from the pool.  When you are in Mr.
Bubbles you can stand on the rocks over the vent and feel them bounce up and
down with the force of the gas coming out.  However it is hot so I couldn’t
stand on the rocks for long because of the heat.



You can soak in Mr. Bubbles but be careful where you enter, don’t try to
walk in near the hot creek’s discharge.  Since the water enters the pool
from the river, hot creek, side geyser/spring, and main vent of the pool the
temperature of the water varies depending on where you are in the pool.  With
the gas from the main vent and the thumping and vibration of the water it is
quite an extraordinary soak.



The little geyser/spring on the northeast side of Mr. Bubbles is a new
feature.  Jim tells me there was no thermal feature there when he visited in
early September 2008 but appeared about a week later in mid-September.  It
was a perpetual spouter with a height of about four feet in late 2008.  The
rangers called it a thermal explosion but in 2009 (and 2010) there was no
debris from the spring so how it was formed is unclear.  From what Jim
learned from the rangers in the area they closed Mr. Bubbles for the
remainder of the 2008 season either because of the volume of hot water it
put out or just as a precaution due to a new and unknown thermal feature.  In
2009 it was a perpetual spouter to about one foot.  In 2010 when we visited
it just bubbled/boiled with a small steady water output.



If you travel up the hot creek entering Mr. Bubbles from the east you’ll
find several interesting thermal features.  All along this creek are
frequent small hot springs near the level of the creek.  I started walking
up the creek on the north side through some low brush and bushes and if you
walk this route be careful, I found a couple of lukecool springs in the
bushes, very hard to see  because of overhanging  brush.  They were several
feet across, very deep, and could have been unfortunate to step in.



The first notable spring is on the north side of the creek a maybe 80 meters
upstream.  It is a beautiful white pool, oval in shape, with one large and
many small terraces down the side of the spring.  It bubbles but I don’t
think it is boiling, I think it is just gas.  After the water leaves the
main pool the cyanobacteria starts as green with no other intervening colors
so the spring is just white and green.



Further up the creek another 100 meters or so are a set of formations on the
north side of the stream.  The first is a couple of “anthill” like
formations that are dry; the water appears to be leaking out elsewhere.  The
anthills are covered with beautiful little terraces on all sides.  Not far
above this is a larger feature on the north bank with a large vent into the
hillside and a side vent that acts as a perpetual spouter one to two feet
high.  The large vent appears to be boiling continuously.  The perpetual
spouter is a mixture of water and steam with mostly water.  The wet rocks
are either white or cyanobactria covered green.  The dry rocks tend to be
either white or grey.  There is another lukewarm hot spring a few meters
further upstream.



Another 50 meters up the creek is a nice set of white pools on the south
side of the creek, hot but not boiling.  There are a few more hot springs on
up the creek. I quit following the creek when its water was cool water,
showing most of the thermal features were downstream.  I think this was
about 300 to 400 meters upstream from Mr. Bubbles.  Please keep in mind I
was guessing at these distances from my memory.



Starting back at Mr. Bubbles the trail past Mr. Bubbles thins out a lot.  You
pass a pool on the right between the trail and Ferris Fork.  If you leave
the trail here and walk in this area you will find many crater ponds in this
area, all appearing to be lukecool to cold.



If you follow the fading trail you come to another small hot creek coming in
from the east.   It drains into a pool in a depression that Jim tells me is
Dyslexic Spring.  Along this spring and up to ten feet uphill on each side
of this creek are many hot springs.  One of these appeared to be erupting
with a height of about a foot, duration of a few seconds, and intervals of
15-30 seconds.  Many of  the rest of these hot springs bubbles, again I
think with gas but some of them could be boiling.  The trail essentially
ends here.



There is a little rise between Dyslexic Spring and Ferris Fork.  Over this
little rise is several more hot springs with runoff down to Ferris Fork.  Down
by Ferris Fork and a few meters downstream is an interesting set of hot
springs.  Some of these springs are in the river coming out of a set of
vents that will likely be low rock islands when Ferris Fork is very low
however since we were in the area the first week of October I doubt Ferris
Fork gets much lower.  Up on the shore is another set of two lines of small
hot spring vents.  These appear to be boiling and are surrounded by a field
of fresh sinter about two by  four meters.  Because the whole area is
covered with fresh sinter it looks like it could erupt. On the first day
when we were in the area I left a marker on this spring.  It was still in
place the next day, so I removed the marker.  So I am unsure if this feature
does anything more than we saw.



Across Ferris Fork on the west bank are three active thermal vents that are
active.  The first vent, the one most downstream, has a long run off  channel
that parallels Ferris Fork for about eighteen meters before turning and
entering Ferris Fork.  When we were there it splashed to one to two feet
high every few seconds and it never overflowed into the runoff channel.  Jim
tells me in 2009 it was erupting to 3-4 feet high with a duration of over 28
minutes and one closed interval of 1 hour 56 minutes.  I believe he told me
with those eruptions the runoff channel was used.



The next spring upstream on the west bank of Ferris Fork currently looks
like a quiet pool several feet in diameter with wood debris in it.  It was
quiet while we were there but Jim tells me it did erupt to one to two feet
as a perpetual spouter in 2008 and 2009.  In those years the water level in
Ferris Fork was higher and closer to the level of this spring.  I think in
the spring at high water this feature would be underwater.



The last feature is the most upstream feature at the foot of a big rock.  When
we were in the area it was a perpetual spouter to a foot or two high.  Jim
did not remember it being active in the past.  This spring would also be
underwater with higher water levels in Ferris Fork.



Back on the East side of Ferris Fork I think about across from the third
upstream spring by the big rock is one spring that looked just warm with
broken algae mats in it.  However the runoff channel was full of broken
pieces of matting seeming to indicate the pool had overflowed or erupted
sometime recently.



The last spring by Ferris Fork and the most upstream is on the east  bank
farther back from the river.  The spring and runoff channel had sinter that
was black when wet and grey when dry.  It bubbles or boils constantly.  The
runoff channel has some interesting scalloped sinter rims and islands.



>From here I climbed up the hill to the east.  There I found a flat swampy
meadow that looked like it had some warm thermal springs in it.  I decided
not to enter this area.  The runoff from this are curved down and became the
stream that enters Dyslexic Spring.


Since then I looked at the area on Google Maps and found I apparently missed
at least two features and perhaps three features.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.287025,-110.878615&spn=0.003717,0.009624&t=h&z=17

Google maps appears to show another thermal area about three to four hundred
feet to the south-east of the swampy meadow area I found on the southeast
boarder of the thermal area.  I saw nothing on the ground to indicate it was
there but it could be over the rise.



The other feature I missed is a pool about 30 by 40 meters that is on the
West bank of Ferris Fork about 150 meters West-South-West of Mr. Bubbles or
about the same distance South-west of Zealous Spring.  It may be an old
spring or large explosion crater.  Then again, it may be a big beaver pond.




There may also be an area of thermal ground just as you first enter the
first thermal area.  If you cross Ferris Fork then go about 100 meters south
there appears to be some thermal ground (or at least lighter patches of
ground) on the Google map picture.  But at least these are things to look at
or look for the next time I’m in the area.



Only 41 days until spring opening (if Congress allows)



Stephen J. Eide
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