It’s only right that I start this post featuring Peggy photographing Old Faithful. She worked at a restaurant in Yellowstone in the summer of 1969 as a college student. Its large picture windows opened out on Old Faithful, meaning that she got to see it erupt several times a day.The family dining room that Peggy worked at has now become a cafeteria, but it’s large picture windows still give diners a great view of Old Faithful erupting.
Erupting geysers are one of Yellowstones best known features. In fact, half of the world’s active geysers are located in the National Park. Peggy and I photographed lots of them when we visited last fall on our four month trip around the US.
Have a few geysers and fumaroles! Including the small ones, I counted over 30 in this photo.
The reason behind Yellowstones record breaking number of geysers is that much of the park is located in a giant caldera, a collapsed volcano. Semi-molten rock exists in some areas as close as 2-5 miles below the surface. This extremely hot rock heats ground water flowing near it and creates Yellowstone’s hydro-thermal features including geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mud pots. We featured hot springs two weeks ago. Today is the geysers’ turn. They erupt when the super hot boiling water creates pressure in channels leading to the surface that erupts as steam out of a vent. As the pressure is released the geyser subsides until the process is repeated. They come in all sizes. The most famous is Old Faithful, given its name due to the regularity of its eruptions.
Peggy and I arrived just as Old Faithful was beginning to erupt. She jumped out of our truck and began snapping photos.I was a bit farther away. Can you imagine how many photos of Old Faithful have been taken? They have to be in the hundreds of millions if not billions. In other words, we aren’t the first. Grin.As the pressure inside the vent subsided, Old Faithful lost its steam, so to speak.As I mentioned in the beginning, the geysers come in all sizes. From this little fellow…To larger…We had a sense of ‘dancing water.’Each geyser had its own personality.These geysers combined to be tall and skinny.I conclude today with this pair of more hefty twin geysers. Next up, Peggy and I will return to Heidelberg, variety being the spice of life. 🙂
Wandering through Time and Place 