Beth (left) and Janet Chapple posing with Lower Falls at Artist Point

On our first full day in the park we had the good fortune to witness Great Fountain Geyser. We realized from the prediction on the signboard we would need to drive around Firehole Lake Drive a second time, and then it worked out perfectly. The benches were full for Great Fountain’s thrilling show, and nearby White Dome erupted as well for us shortly afterward.

We went to several of Canyon’s beautifully expanded overlooks. Janet could use her walker on the nicely graded path to Lookout Point. Other members of our party took advantage of the half-mile walk from our cabin to Grand View as many as three times during our two-night stay! We found that early and late daylight hours were best for avoiding crowds.

On July 2, Niklas and I hiked from a Grand Loop Road turnout to see Black Sand Pool, Punch Bowl Spring, and Daisy Geyser, predicted for 4:30 pm plus or minus 20 minutes. It was breezy with nearby thunderstorms that happily did not come near. We were still approaching when Daisy started to erupt in its famous diagonal way at 4:09 pm. Only three other people witnessed the eruption with us. On the way back we sought out Demon’s Cave with its dangerous overhanging ledge, but it looks like people have thrown sticks in over the years.

We admired all the easily accessible waterfalls on our route. Besides Lower and Upper Falls of the Yellowstone at Canyon, that means Gibbon Falls, Kepler Cascades, Virginia Cascade, and Lewis Falls. At Lewis we walked along the bridge and also admired the downstream meadow and view of the mountains across the road to the south.

The morning we were moving from Old Faithful Inn to the Canyon Lodge cabins was our best chance to see Mammoth Hot Springs, we decided. The road closure this season between Tower and Canyon made us have to repeat a road segment instead of going around the upper loop road, but we stopped at different points, such as Gibbon Falls on the way north and Apollonaris Spring on the way south (more about that cold spring in a future blog post). At Mammoth the fun parts were walking the boardwalk stairs down from our parking at the Upper Terrace Drive to see Cupid and Canary Springs from various angles and then picnicking on the grass outside the chapel.

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While waiting, I strolled over to Veteran Geyser, “which probably derived its name from the very old sinter deposits all around,” as author Janet Chapple says in the fifth edition of the guidebook on page 238.

Veteran Geyser, morning of June 28, 2019

But behind the main pool of Veteran Geyser is a vent that has become more active in recent years. So we will be adding the phrase “recently getting a beautiful light coating of geyserite” to the description. Below you can see a more detailed view.
—Editor Beth

Fresh geyserite deposited by Veteran Geyser, June 2019

Engraving of Ernest L. Blumenschein’s 1903 drawing. Tourists on top of Hymen Terrace, Mammoth Hot Springs.

Beyond the Upper Basin one cannot escape a veritable succession of marvels. At the Fountain there are many strange forms of geysers and hot springs, often gorgeous in coloring, surrounded by water-formed rocks in many curious and beautiful designs, and veritable caldrons of bubbling mud, and bears in the garbage-piles, and I know not how many other wonders. At Norris there are growling, jagged holes in the earth, belching forth huge volumes of hot steam, which, having killed and bleached all the verdure of the near mountain-side, has given the whole valley an indescribable air of desolation, as if the forces of nature had gone wrong—the very work of the devil, after whom so many of the marvels are named. Farther along one shudders under the brow of Roaring Mountain, makes a wry face while sipping water from the Apollinaris spring, wonders at the Hoodoo rocks [at Silver Gate], or admires the gorgeous colored pulpits and terraces of the Mammoth Hot Springs.

And yet after all these things, amazing as they are, one turns again to the road and the mountains and the trees. Undue emphasis may have been laid upon the odd, spectacular, bizarre—those things, dear to the heart of the American, which are the “biggest,” the “grandest,” the “most wonderful,” the “most beautiful” of their kind in the world. But the Park is far more than a natural hippodrome. The geysers appeal to one’s sense of the mysterious: one treads on the hollow earth not without an agreeable sense of danger, thrills with the volcanic rumblings underneath, waits with tense interest for the geyser, now boiling and bubbling, to hurl its fountain of hot water into the air; one is awed by these strange evidences of a living earth, guesses and conjectures, as the scientists have been doing for centuries, and then, somehow, unaccountably weary of these exhibitions, turns to the solemn, majestic hills, to waterfall and marshy meadow, to the wonderful trail through the forest. For, after all, the charm of the Park is the charm of the deep, untouched wilderness, the joy of the open road.

Indeed, the very name Park, associated as it is with smooth lawns and formal, man-guarded tree-groups and stream-courses, seems out of place when applied to these splendid mountain-tops. Here is a space nearly sixty miles square—a third larger than the State of Delaware, and, with its adjoining forest reserves, which are really a part of the public wilderness, nearly as large as Massachusetts or New Jersey. Visitors see only a narrow road-strip of its wonders, though the best; upon vast reaches of mountain and forest, lakes, rivers, geysers, cañons, no man looks once a year; probably many areas have never been seen by human eyes. The United States regular soldiers who guard it keep mostly to the roads, the boundaries of the Park being for the most part so wild and rugged that even poaching hunters could not cross them if they would.

It was a carping German traveler who complained that this Park was no park. “Look at your dead trees and burned stumps in the woods,” he said, thinking perhaps of the well-groomed, man-made forests of his native land, “and your streams, full of driftwood. It is not cared for.”

And Heaven help that it may never be cared for in that way! Not a park, but a wilderness, full of wild beauty and natural disorder, may we keep the place as nature left it, disturbing no land-slide where it lies, no natural dam of logs and stones heaped here by mountain freshet, no havoc of wind-storm or avalanche. The windfall, with its shaggy spreading roots full of matted earth and stone, rapidly being covered with grass and moss, and the river-bed full of bleached driftwood, each has its own rare quality of picturesqueness, its own fitting place in this wild harmony. There is beauty even in the work of the forest fire, which has left whole mountain-sides of freshly scorched pine foliage, a deep golden red smoldering in the sunshine; and many a blackened bit of forest, longer burned, leaves an impression of somber shadows, of silence and death, which cannot be forgotten. One even comes to begrudge this wilderness its telephone poles, its roads, and the excellent stone embankments which keep them from slipping down the mountainsides into the swift streams below; for they detract from its wild perfection. We may behold nature in its softer and more comely aspects almost anywhere; but every year, with the spread of population in our country, it becomes more difficult to preserve genuine wilderness places where hill and forest and stream have been left exactly as nature made them. Already our indomitable pioneers have driven the wilderness into the very fastnesses of the mountains, so that only remnants now remain. And this great Yellowstone Park remnant has been fortunately set aside by the government for the enjoyment and inspiration of the people forever.

CREDIT: “A Place of Marvels: Yellowstone Park as It Now Is,” The Great Northwest Series, The Century Magazine 66, no. 4 (August 1903): 481–91. Reproduced in Chapple, Janet, ed. Through Early Yellowstone: Adventuring by Bicycle, Covered Wagon, Foot, Horseback, and Skis, pp. 215–17. Lake Forest Park, WA: Granite Peak Publications, 2016.

Believe us, the engravings of Blumenschein’s illustrations for Baker’s article come out far better in the print version of the book.

Here’s the good news: the Uncle Tom’s Point reconstruction that was completed on October 20 added new walkways and improved overlooks with views of Upper Falls. Canyon Overlook and Sunset Point are wheelchair-accessible, and you will now be able to walk the South Rim Trail to Chittenden Bridge in 0.87 miles (1.4 km).

There’s more to come for trails through Yellowstone National Park. Mount Washburn trails and trailheads closed for the season on July 12, 2018. They are reconstructing the trail and building a telecommunications structure at the historic Mount Washburn fire lookout. Also, on October 15 Fishing Bridge closed for construction, and more recently a boardwalk on Geyser Hill had to be closed due to activity underneath. On Twitter? Follow us (@GPPublications) and the park itself (@YellowstoneNPS) to keep informed about trail changes and improvements.

This photo of a major eruption of Steamboat Geyser gives a sense of its power but not its full height!

Here are a few of the geyser changes since the cutoff date for the first printing, February 2017. During 2017 Atomizer Geyser (p. 96) noticeably slowed its interval down from twice a day to an average of 20 hours. Page 93 of the first printing says Giant Geyser last erupted on September 28, 2015 (and that was after a five-and-a-half year hiatus, so it was pretty important). But nature has been busy proving the guidebook wrong. Giant erupted on July 7, October 9, and November 3, 2017, so we included the November date as the last eruption. Now the most recent eruption was actually July 24, 2018, and that was the third time in the month of July.

We are fortunate to have a website called GeyserTimes.org, where geyser gazers can log their observations or the notes from a ranger or scientist at the US Geological Survey (USGS) Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. Readings from seismometers, thermometers, and water discharge monitors are used to record eruptions even when nobody is there to witness them. That is how we know that Steamboat Geyser started erupting again on March 15, 2018, too late to get into the second printing. On page 233, it unfortunately still says “After eruptions in 2003 and 2005, Steamboat erupted once each in 2013 and 2014.” Yet as of today there have been 11 more since March 15, with the latest occurring on July 20, 2018! The USGS is keeping a running count of Steamboat’s water eruptions at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory page.

You may have a chance to see the Giant or Steamboat Geysers on your trip to Yellowstone. Stay informed with Yellowstone Treasures, both the book and this website.

—Beth Chapple, editor and publisher

Photo credit: James St. John, June 4, 2018. Reproduced courtesy of a partial Creative Commons license. More photos and more about the history of Steamboat Geyser is available at on the geologist’s Flickr page for this photo.

Grand Prismatic Spring, the same one that is featured on the cover of “Through Early Yellowstone”

Be ready to stop as you drive between these major attractions, since there are pleasant surprises (sometimes including wildlife) all along the roads.

Photo credit: Grand Prismatic Spring in Midway Geyser Basin, taken by Bruno Giletti, can be seen on page 65 of Yellowstone Treasures, updated fifth edition.

Grand Geyser (2013)

GOSA: How long have you been geyser gazing?
The parents first fell in love with Yellowstone in 1994 and so decided to return in 1997 with the twin boys. They were only 13 months old, but not too young to enjoy Echinus Geyser. Since 2001, we have been coming back to this beautiful place every year and, with time, developed our passion for geysers. While waiting for our first major geysers like Grand and Great Fountain, we were taught about the things to look for by a lot of very helpful and friendly people and learned they were part of the GOSA community. We began subscribing to the Geyser Gazer Sput in 2007 and have enjoyed being part of the community ever since.

GOSA: How did your family begin geyser gazing?
Initially, we used the predictions provided by the National Park Service. We still remember waiting for Madison VC to open on our way from West into the basin to get some information and plan our day. Those were the days before we had the Internet! With the children still in a stroller we already tried to wait for at least Echinus, Daisy and Grand. We were so lucky that the boys were very patient.

But I think what really got us hooked in the first place was the nice atmosphere while waiting for Great Fountain. The anticipated eruption with sparkling diamonds combined with blue at the bottom just took our breath away. It was there where Jeff Davis and Lynn Stephens started teaching us where to look to make our “own” predictions and told us about other geysers not predicted by the NPS like Fountain and Artemisia. After that we got “fireworks” at Grand; rainbows at Beehive; thumps at Oblong; playful, never tiring Fountain; mystic, blue-green Artemisia; soaking, funny Fan and Mortar; and graceful, blue and high Morning. So many eruptions which brought us joy and delight, but also the feeling of awe and gratefulness. We always saw something new or interesting. Attached to almost every geyser are memories of people sharing knowledge and giving advice. Such an openness, especially towards foreigners, was what made it special and we feel like part of a huge family now.

Excerpted from The Geyser Gazer Sput, Vol. 32, No. 1, February/March 2018, by permission of editor Pat Snyder. Photo credit: Beth Chapple, June 23, 2013.

I’ve been privileged to see eruptions of all ten of the wonderful geysers mentioned here, even though I get only a very limited time in the Upper Geyser Basin each summer. The Altstidl’s mention of their children being patient reminds me of how my then-six-year-old granddaughter Lexi made no complaint about our hour-long wait for Grand Geyser to erupt; perhaps small children sense that something wonderful is about to happen.

You, too, can become a member of the now thirty-year-old Geyser Observation and Study Association. Write c/o Bill Johnson, PO Box 5031, White Rock NM 87547; email store@gosa.org; or sign up on the website: www.gosa.org.

Trained as a medical doctor at Albany (NY) Medical School, Hayden served as a surgeon in the Union Army until 1865. However, he became interested in geology through collecting and studying fossils in the Dakota Territory and in 1867 began his government-supported geological surveys of the west.

During the summers of 1871, 1872, and 1878, the Hayden Survey studied the Yellowstone area systematically. The men observed and reported on many geological and other phenomena in voluminous reports. The report of Hayden’s first exploration was essential in convincing Congress to establish YNP in 1872.

Hayden’s love of geysers and hot springs reportedly could move him to tears. As an early guidebook writer observed: “He cannot compose himself in the presence of a geyser in eruption; but, losing recollection of the material world for the time, rubs his hands, shouts, and dances around the object of his admiration in a paroxysm of gleeful excitement.”

Now that the park is open and predictions are posted, you can catch all the daylight eruptions of Old Faithful Geyser. There are also views from nine static webcams scattered around the park that you can look at by scrolling down below the map of Upper Geyser Basin to “Other Webcam Views. . . .”