A Personal Confrontation With A Geyser
black mamba
Registered Users Posts: 8,325 Major grins
Recently, I've been posting, both here and on " Landscapes ", a series of photos about the two weeks I spent in Yellowstone. If you've seen any of those posts, you can easily tell I was both amazed and awe-struck by the preponderance of hydro-thermal / geothermal features that are, literally, all over the park. Several large basins contain the bulk of these features, but, in fact, they are everywhere.
After a morning of hard hiking, my wife and I were walking along a beautiful mountain river. We came upon this very large rock outcropping that afforded a great opportunity to get out on it and soak our feet in the refreshing, cold water. Which we proceeded to do.
Looking at the first shot here, we went quickly to the edge of the rock on the far right-hand side...took off our boots and socks and stuck our feet into the water. Man, that felt good.
We had been sitting there about 5 minutes....just relaxing and pretty much oblivious to anything else. We hadn't really paid much attention to anything else in our surroundings. I felt some small vibrations....but what really got my attention was when some loud sounds of spewing, hissing, and burbling began. Both my wife and I took a quick look behind us and got the shock of our lives. Not 20 feet from us, in a part of that rock that we hadn't even noticed, some sort of hydro-thermal feature was cranking up. I can't honestly tell you which one of us was first off that rock and back up the bank....but it was instantaneous.
Looking at the second image, you can clearly see the opening to that thing. The opening is about 1 foot in diameter. I mean that thing exists in this huge, solid rock. I'm not sure exactly what all that thing throws out but you can see that it has colored some of that rock extensively. The whole episode probably lasted a minute at most, but it seemed to go on forever.
When I thought it was safe, I darted back onto the rock and took the second shot and got back off.
After a morning of hard hiking, my wife and I were walking along a beautiful mountain river. We came upon this very large rock outcropping that afforded a great opportunity to get out on it and soak our feet in the refreshing, cold water. Which we proceeded to do.
Looking at the first shot here, we went quickly to the edge of the rock on the far right-hand side...took off our boots and socks and stuck our feet into the water. Man, that felt good.
We had been sitting there about 5 minutes....just relaxing and pretty much oblivious to anything else. We hadn't really paid much attention to anything else in our surroundings. I felt some small vibrations....but what really got my attention was when some loud sounds of spewing, hissing, and burbling began. Both my wife and I took a quick look behind us and got the shock of our lives. Not 20 feet from us, in a part of that rock that we hadn't even noticed, some sort of hydro-thermal feature was cranking up. I can't honestly tell you which one of us was first off that rock and back up the bank....but it was instantaneous.
Looking at the second image, you can clearly see the opening to that thing. The opening is about 1 foot in diameter. I mean that thing exists in this huge, solid rock. I'm not sure exactly what all that thing throws out but you can see that it has colored some of that rock extensively. The whole episode probably lasted a minute at most, but it seemed to go on forever.
When I thought it was safe, I darted back onto the rock and took the second shot and got back off.
I always wanted to lie naked on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace. Cracker Barrel didn't take kindly to it.
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Comments
A fine and telling little tale.
Complete with pictures no less
Glad your both fine
Some days ya just can't be careful enough no matter what ya know... or think ya know.
I'd have been a little taken too.
Am wondering if/who had a long lens on the both of you documenting your experience Tom.
A dgrin member perhaps
Sam
I can tell you, Michael, anyone taking a picture of us getting off of that rock would have needed some ungodly shutter speed to avoid recording a blur.
Tom
Hi Sam,
In another posting, I related the fact that the Park has published material that says, over the years, a dozen people have been scalded to death and many, many more seriously burned by these hydro-thermal features. That's in addition to those folks who were maimed or killed by animals. And, on top of all that, you have people who die from falling off cliffs, etc., etc. The day before I got there, a young girl, working as a Summer intern and on her first day at the job, fell to her death when she went beyond some barriers. While I was there, some fool let a massive bull Bison come up to within 2 feet of himself. The animal decided to gore him and then proceeded to try and mash him into the earth. I believe this guy lived but was badly, badly wounded.
To its credit, the Park goes to extremes to warn people, very emphatically I might add, of the many dangers present. There's not much you can do, though, when people seem to be hell-bent on hastening their demise by ignoring rules and throwing common sense out of the window.
You're very right, Sam. The place is fraught with dangers.
Tom