Continuing the occasional posts about my favorite hot springs and pools in Yellowstone, today I’ll feature two located in Upper Geyser Basin. One of these is a short walk from Old Faithful Geyser and next to the remarkable formation of Castle Geyser. The other takes more effort to reach but is also worth every bit of it.
Crested Pool, pictured by my friend Suzanne Cane on a beautiful sunny day a couple of summers ago,
has gone by many names since first seen by writers about the park. It has stayed consistently beautiful since it was first described in the 1870s—not true of all Yellowstone’s hot pools. We’ve used Suzanne’s picture on the cover of our guide to the park’s most accessible thermal areas, Visiting Geyserland.
Lee Whittlesey, Park Historian, lists no fewer than ten names for this pool in his Yellowstone Place Names. First it was called “Fire Basin” by expedition leader Ferdinand V. Hayden (1872). Then the goddess Diana was featured in three names as “Diana’s Spring,” “Diana’s Well,” and “Diana’s Bath.” Sadly, the most appropriate old name was “Devil’s Well”: in 1970 a young boy jumped or fell to his death in this pool.
If you cross the Firehole River beyond Crested Pool and pass other great features like Grand, Oblong, and Riverside Geysers and Morning Glory Pool, you’ll come to the unmaintained trail (and former road) that leads uphill to Artemisia Geyser. It’s a real geyser, but you have to be very patient or very lucky to see an eruption. It goes off extremely irregularly; somewhere between one-third of a day and a day-and-a-half will pass between any two eruptions. However, as you can see from my June 2015 picture, it is worthwhile visiting,
just for its gorgeous-colored pool and the unusual patterns of its geyserite surroundings. You can continue on the path past other lovely features all the way to Biscuit Basin.
I was never lucky enough to see an eruption, but remember Artemesia as a peaceful place to bring a book, hang out, and hope.