Yellowstone National Park-Old Faithful

September 7, 2009 Labor Day

Yellowstone

Biggest Hot Spot in the World
I am not certain that I understand what a hot spot is, but it is underground and very hot and there are only 20 in the world and Yellowstone is the biggest. Geologists don’t know what causes them. In Yellowstone they provide over 10,000 thermal springs the steam from which one sees rising all over the park. The magma under the earth heats and moves around.

In some cases one sees “bubbling cauldrons” looking like mud or yeasty substance bubbling away. Often you can smell the sulfur that is rising as the hydrogen sulfide in the land converts to sulfuric acid because of thermoacidophiles (organisms that thrive(love) on acid.

Right hand with palm facing you- map of Yellowstone Lake
When you hold your right hand this way, you get your map of Yellowstone Lake. Water enters from the river at the Pinky and eventually goes out through the West thumb. It takes eleven days to go through the Yellowstone Lake to exit at the West Thumb. From there it flows into the Missouri River and then the Mississippi.

Old Faithful
Perhaps the most famous piece of Yellowstone is the thermal spring that is the biggest geyser in the world and erupts faithfully every 60-90 minutes. Hundreds, if not thousands of people, sit each hour watching the steam as it changes and waiting for a big eruption. At times before the eruption we saw bubbles like a fountain of water rising a few times and then returning to steam. It came beautifully into much higher fountain waters that erupt a few times before they settle back down. Old Faithful is not the only geyser at Yellowstone, but it is the biggest.

What causes a geyser?
From what I understand, the hot magma moves around and can create fissures. In order to have a geyser, there have to be three things. First is plenty of water and Yellowstone has lots of snow and rain. The water finds its way in to the fissure and is under the tremendous pressure of the earth above it. The hot magma heats the water and because of the very high pressure, it can heat to a boiling point of 400 F. There has to be way out for this steam but in order for it to come out as a geyser, there must be a serious constriction in its route out. At old Faithful the constriction is 4.5 inches and the rest of chamber is more than 20 inches. So when the steam gets that restriction it builds pressure until it explodes up through the top. If there is not a very special rock coating the steam’s path, the whole geyser would explode the first time it blows. So you need a rock to withstand the geyser. Someone called it Carbonite and someone called it Geyserite.

Is this a volcano?
Yellowstone is super volcano but it has not erupted in 430 million years. When it did erupt it made a crater that created Yellowstone Lake, the biggest lake in North America at this altitude. Yellowstone is basically in Wyoming and when this volcano erupted, dinosaurs in Nebraska had their lungs burnt out.

Wildlife
Yellowstone may be best known for its bears but we did not see any. You see bears out mainly in the early summer –they are still in the park but have moved north to eat White Birch -and what you see in the late summer are lots of Bison. Bison have their rutting season mostly in August and when they are looking for mates, they join the heard to find females that they can court. Gestation is 8 months so the newbies conceived in July have the best chance for their first winter survival. We are in to September now and there are still a few Bison still trying to copulate and you can see them try to separate a female from the herd to cut down other male interference. The male bison can weigh 2000 lbs and are quite big. We were seeing a lot of them but we only got really close in a car because they can be dangerous to walk near. You should leave 75 ft. between yourself and the bison. We went on a nature walk with a ranger in the area of a herd. First thing, it is easy to identify the scat of these animals as they are quite circular and loose and have rivulets around the feces. The bison is upset if his tail is raised and that is a sign to be careful. We saw many relaxed bison (even an orange bison which shows that it is less than 4 months old) but we did not too close. On our way back along our loop, a bison wondered on to our path so the ranger took us off trail through the meadows to avoid him. We also saw an elk.

The soil quality of Yellowstone is quite poor. It can support the Lodgepole Pine and that tree makes it possible for some other tree types to grow. There are fir trees which are identifiable by there soft luxuriant needles like fur. Our ranger told us that Congress allowed this to become the First National Park because they believed it had little value—the soil was poor, it contained no gold or silver, and you couldn’t get lumber out of here without big problems.

On the Road;Yellowstone Natl. Park-Getting Here

Yellowstone National Park
September 6, 2009

Trip from Glacier to Yellowstone
We got an early start to leave Glacier as Yellowstone turns out to be 625 miles away and we had a room booked for tonight. We began driving across Montana on the highways. On and on we drove and there was nothing on either side of the road but grass, some fences, occasional cows. At last we came to a rest stop. At the entrance to the little park was a sign “Stay on Sidewalks. Rattlesnakes have been spotted.” David made very good time on the roads. A lot of time he could go 70 or 75 and sometimes he passed slower motorists.

The first sign of residences or businesses was around Helena, the capital. We stopped for lunch at a Burger King and it appeared to be crowded with people coming from church. At the booth next to ours was a couple of great grandparents with 3 very young ones of a granddaughter(who is just turning 21 years old) and a granddaughter(aunt to the little ones who is 9 nine years old). After lunch they were going to picture appointments at the Wal-Mart next door.

Arrival at Yellowstone

We arrived at Yellowstone at a little after 3 p.m. but after waiting for a ranger to give us information and going to the hotel for more information, we found out that our cabin was another hour and a half away. On the way we saw large fields of ice and steam from geysers rising into the air. We were stopped on the road by some inconsiderate visitors who stopped their cars to apparently look at bears. We did not see the bears but we did see two enormous bison grazing by the side of the road as we neared our destination. Our cabin was at the end of some cabins that felt like the middle of nowhere but we were pleasantly surprised to see that the cabin had been remodeled into an attractive western cabin with a nice new bathroom. For folks who like the feeling of no internet, no cell phone connection, no radio or tv this is wonderful but I feel insecure.