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. <div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Since then I looked at the area on Google Maps and found I apparently missed at least two features and perhaps three features. </div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.287025,-110.878615&spn=0.003717,0.009624&t=h&z=17">http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.287025,-110.878615&spn=0.003717,0.009624&t=h&z=17</a></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">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. </div> 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