Tough call whether that thing is a separate feature from Spasmodic and Thumping Hole (the pentagonal hole on the far side of it from the boardwalk). It fills and splashes in pretty tight synchrony with Spasmodic. Incidentally, that hole wasn't always the gaping hole it is today. When I first looked at it in 1990, it was a shallow, oblong depression with packed gravel on the left side where the throat. It would fill with hot water along with Spasmodic. I think that was the state it was in the year the "hot dog" comment was made. A year or two later, the left vent was cleaned out by a volunteer and it started behaving more or less like it does now, and laying down deposits in the long-disused runoff channel it flows into (which is probably also Penta's original, pre-Upper Basin trail construction channel). The right vent was cleared some time later--several years I think--probably by the same volunteer. I'm curious when it got filled in originally--whether it was pre-exploration, around the time of the trail construction, or some time later. It's probably not significant enough to have made it into any early observations either way, but maybe? The fact that the gravel was loose enough to be cleaned out suggests that it hadn't been filled long enough to cement the debris in place, in spite of the frequent rise-and-fall of water. David Schwarz <div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 8:03 PM, JEFFREY CROSS <<a href="mailto:jeff.cross@utah.edu">jeff.cross@utah.edu</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> Is the small vent across the boardwalk from Penta a geyser? If so, should it be considered a geyser separately from Spasmodic? This summer, I found out that some people call this vent "Hot Dog." It is right next to the boardwalk, on the same side as Spasmodic and opposite Penta. It is shaped roughly like a bootprint. It seems to be most active when Penta is about to start an eruption. The origin of the name is interesting: A careless visitor was illegally walking a dog on the boardwalk. When the animal saw the bubbling vent, it jumped down to investigate and burnt its paw. The animal's yelps attracted the comment from one gazer: "That's what I call a hot dog." Jeff Cross jeff.cross@utah.edu_______________________________________________ Geysers mailing list <a href="mailto:Geysers@lists.wallawalla.edu">Geysers@lists.wallawalla.edu</a> <a href="https://lists.wallawalla.edu/mailman/listinfo/geysers" target="_blank">https://lists.wallawalla.edu/mailman/listinfo/geysers</a> </blockquote></div>