Yellowstone Pictures, Gallery 19

These are all from the great summer of 2001 excursion, August 22.
After Mammoth we continued south to the Artist Paint Pots and then back tracked a bit to Norris Geyser Basin.


Hot Spring at Artist Paint Pot, YellowstoneThis is one of the extraordinarily colorful hot springs at the Artist Paint Pot trail in the Gibbon Geyser Basin.  The Gibbon Basin, between Madison Junction and Norris,  has several groups of springs scattered widely more or less around the edge of the Gibbon Meadows.  There are trails to only two of the hot spring groups, namely the Artist Paint Pots and Monument Geyser Basin.  The trail to the Artist Paint Pots is easy and short, yet it gets you away from the crowds that sometimes plague other areas.  Well, it is mostly easy, it does climb a hill at one point.  Wheelchairs  would be difficult.  Presumably the artist part of the name came from the colors of the hot springs.  I would guess here that the red is from iron oxide, and the blue from water (pools of water tend to be blue). The opalescent quality of the blue is probably from small particles of clay or silica floating in the water.  So this is basically muddy water in a rusty bowl.  The green of the tree is from chlorophyll.



Blood Geyser, Artist Paint Pots, YellowstoneThis would be Blood Geyser, also at Artist Paint Pots.  Blood is nearly a perpetual spouter, but it does take an occasional pause according to the books.  It didn't while we were there.  It got it's name because the water turns blood red (the iron oxide again) if allowed to sit and cool.  It is going maybe five feet high here.



Artist Paint Pots Hillside, YellowstoneThis was supposed to be a picture of an unnamed geyser in eruption, UNNG-GIB-2 by the naming system of T. Scott Bryan's wonderful book The Geysers of Yellowstone, but UNNG-GIB-2 has kind of small quick eruptions that squirt a bit of water a few feet from the crack in the boulder at the lower center of the picture.  Evidently the camera missed the spurt of water.  Still, I like the picture of the hillside with the grass and rocks and steam and the tomato soup colored springs on the right hand edge.



Looking Down From Paint Pot Hill, YellowstoneThe view from farther up Paint Pot HIll.  I think the steam in the lower right is Blood Geyser.



Artist Paint Pots, YellowstoneThe actual Paint Pots at Artist Paint Pots are near the top of Paint Pot Hill.  There are two of them right next to each other.  One was kind of dried up looking mud that day, but the other was bubbling nicely.  Why anyone thought cauldrons of bubbling mud looked like paint I don't know, but this is not the only area in Yellowstone where mud pots are called paint pots.



Grouse at Artist Paint Pots, YellowstoneOn the way out of the thermal are we came across some grouse right next to the trail.  They were not very afraid of us.  Maybe they thought we could not see them.  I was looking at this picture and another that I took of the grouse, wondering why the grouse on the log was so out of focus, not seeing the ones in good focus in the grass at first.



I wanted to go to one of the backcountry areas of Gibbon Basin after the Paint Pots, but made the mistake of reading to my mom and sister about the area and how we would have to climb over miles of downed and burned timber to get there, how dangerous the area was with thin crusts over boiling water and a cranky grizzly living in the area, so between that and a thunderstorm heading our way, we didn't go on that little adventure.



Steamboat Geyser, Norris, YellowstoneI was able to talk my sister into stopping at Norris Geyser basin on the way back to Canyon, even though it was getting late.  We walked around the Back Basin portion of it.  This is Steamboat Geyser, a.k.a. New Crater Spring.  It is the tallest geyser in the world when it has it's rare major eruptions.  Those can hit over 350 feet.  It has frequent minor eruptions like this that might be 20 to 40 feet tall, but when you know that it can go so much higher if it wants to, they seem puny.  They usually seem calm and serene to me - maybe because the geyser sits a fair distance from the boardwalk and the sounds are muted and the water looks like it is rising and falling in slow motion.  Some people will watch Steamboat for weeks and months, hoping to catch an eruption.  They study how the activity changes in the minor eruptions, which of the two vents starts, how tall, how often, stuff like that, to try and divine how likely a major is.



Yellow Funnel Spring, Norris, YellowstoneThis is Yellow Funnel Spring.  I think probably when it was named back in the day it had a much different appearance, although it is in a funnel shaped crater and does have a yellow ring around the water's edge.  Usually it does not erupt.  At Norris Basin there are what are called seasonal disturbances, usually in late summer or fall, where geyser activity greatly increases.  Something similar might happen at other geyser basins, but Norris is famous for it.  So maybe there was a seasonal disturbance going on while we were there.



Pearl Geyser, Norris, YellowstonePearl geyser was erupting.  I like Pearl.  It has clean looking water, unlike a lot of it's neighbors.



Geyser, Norris, YellowstoneThis is possibly Double Bulger.  I wouldn't bet large sums of money on it though.  It was in the right general area on the map, but the description in the book leaves me wondering.  Bulger is an old term that roughly means small geyser.  Double Bulger used to have two vents, but one quit.



Veteran Geyser, Norris, YellowstoneWe saw a few other geysers that I didn't photograph, including Vixen Geyser, always a favorite, I was glad to see it was active again.  Then we spent some time watching this guy, Veteran Geyser.  Here it is having a minor eruption.  I have never seen it have a major eruption from up close, but seeing one from far away definitely gave me the desire to.  That jet of water in the picture gets much bigger and steadier, sprayed at a low angle maybe 40 feet out.  Veteran goes through cycles where it's activity increases from being relatively quiet, to having the minor eruptions more frequently, to having majors mixed in more frequently with the minors.  Unless it is in a very quiet part of it's cycle it usually looks like it is getting ready to erupt.  There will be steam growling and water sloshing around in the main vent.  Then water levels rise and water starts getting thrown out the little hole in the bottom left of the photo and starts to fill a large basin between the main vent and the trail.  There is also a third vent that is not visible here right next to the trail that may make some noise.  If all goes well the little hole that is filling the big basin gets covered by the rising water and the main vent starts splashing more, and you get a minor eruption like this.  Or if you are really lucky the main vent gets going really strong with a big angled column of water and the third vent shoots water across the trail and you get to see a major eruption.  More likely it quiets down, the water drains from the big basin back into the little hole, and it all starts again, but maybe a little stronger.  I wanted to wait till it was absolutely dark (I was hoping for a full moon), or until Veteran had a major eruption, but mom made us leave, something about starvation.


copyright Chris Johnson
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