I
managed to catch the last part of Castle Geyser erupting as I set out that
morning. Here it is going into the steam phase of the eruption, where
the water is gradually replaced by steam.
As
I was leaving Castle I noticed Beehive Geyser erupting across the Firehole
River. I tried running over there to see it up close. It is
really impressive to stand maybe 10 yards away from a 200 foot tall geyser.
Of course it had quit by the time I got there. Still, even seeing
it from a distance is nice. It was like the geyser gods were teasing
me, missing most of Castle's eruption, and then having to settle for Beehive
from across the river. This was not a good omen for my plan to wait
for Fan and Mortar geysers, but I foolishly ignored it.
Having
missed Beehive, I headed toward Fan and Mortar geysers. Along the
way I ran across West Triplet Geyser. It is a little one associated
with Grand Geyser. Grand is a predicted geyser, very impressive,
well worth a potentially long wait for it's eruptions, but it wasn't predicted
to erupt anytime soon, so I watched West Triplet for a little while and
then kept hiking down the basin.
I
arrived in the vicinity of Fan and Mortar and settled down for a long while,
hoping to catch one of their unpredictable eruptions. I checked out
this pool across the trail from Fan and Mortar, unofficially known as Norris
Pool. Evidently, there was an old hot spring crater here. Then
in the 1990's it became a smelly mudpot, one of the few mudpots in the
Upper Basin, leading to the name Norris Pool. Norris Geyser Basin
is one of the smellier of Yellowstone's thermal areas. Then it started
to erupt at times. Gradually the water cleared and the old sinter
crater was revealed. It is definitely connected to it's neighboring
geysers Fan, Mortar, and Spiteful. Lately it often will erupt with
Fan and Mortar.
I
get kind of bored waiting hours for some stubborn geyser to erupt, so I
walked around the vicinity a bit. Just past Morning Glory Pool, along
the old road, is this big, deep, old, empty sinter lined basin of some
prehistoric geyser or spring. I thought it was kind of pretty.
Wandering
further I came upon Sentinel Geyser showing some activity.
I wandered back to Fan and Mortar, got hungry, ate some lunch at Hamilton Store (now Delaware general store or some such thing), swearing to myself I would waste no more time on Fan and Mortar. Then I overheard a radio conversation that implied Fan and Mortar might be getting ready to erupt. There are these crazy people who spend weeks watching the geysers, sometimes just one geyser, calling each other on radios when something interesting happens. These fanatical people are the reason we know most of what we do know about the activities of the geysers. So I went back and waited much of the rest of the afternoon.
Finally
I did give up on Fan and Mortar. I wandered a bit on the way back
to the cabin. This is Twilight Spring, looking weird because it is
not full of water. It also seems to be erupting a bit.
A
few minutes later twilight had returned to normal. A fitting thing
to observe for the end of the last day of the trip. Twilight of the
trip and all.