Riverside and Daisy Geysers

Riverside Geyser eruptions are predicted inside the Old Faithful Visitor Center - with a margin for error (It may have been plus or minus half an hour, but I don't really remember what the time spans were for each geyser. Riverside is about 1 1/4 miles from the Visitor Center, so allow yourself enough time to get there to see the geyser go off.

We walked to Riverside early on fine morning. The eruption was already in progress when we got there, I think Riverside can last for up to 20 minutes every six hours. The Riverside cone is right on the edge of the Firehole River. The fountaining steam and water arc over the river - I seem to recall that we saw a rainbow there, but I don't have any photograph of that. If you walk past the trees a short ways, you cross a bridge where you can stop and look back at the Riverside display - all the people with tripods were there on the bridge, so that must be the ideal view for the eruption.

Melanie posed by the sign.

The eruption ended while we watched from the bridge. Riverside is a powerful geyser, I think a lot of water must seep down into the rocks from the river so start each cycle, which is why the eruptions last long and repeat relatively frequently.

Just a short way beyond Riverside is the famous Morning Glory pool. A morning glory, of course, is a blue flower, and the deep blue color of the pool reminded the first visitors of that flower's color. Apparently, the blue color has faded more toward green in more recent years, indicating that the pool has cooled. The park service vacuums all kinds of debris out of the pool - like coins, rocks and trash - this litter blocks the hot water vents, which is why the blue has faded. But it is still a lovely sight.

Daisy Geyser eruptions are also predicted by the park service at the Visitor Center. We arrive a bit early, but Daisy was late that day. However, there was a park ranger also there to watch Daisy, so we got to chat with him a little bit. Thus, we learned that the skeleton we had seen walking over to Daisy was a young buffalo. Buffalo don't live too long, I guess winter's are hard on them, though the wolves won't usually attack them unless they are away from their herd.

Here are some photos of what Daisy looks like when it erupts. It does not shoot directly vertical, but instead it shoots out at an angle. If you move a bit down the path, you can see this jet more clearly.

The Punch Bowl is a boiling hot spring with an intricate thin crust around it's perimeter. I remembered it being a bit more colorful, when I was 11 years old my family visited Yellowstone, and I did a color pencil drawing of Punch Bowl (I thought I still had this drawing, but I can't find it now.) Perhaps my memories of the color were altered by looking at that drawing, but anyway, Punch Bowl is still pretty neat to look at. Just don't expect gaudy pinks / reds / purples like you would find in a set of colored pencils.