The title really indicates our planned agenda for the day, but there was an extraordinary surprise in store for us as we were traveling from Madison Campground up to the Bunsen Peak trail head. As we approached the Norris Geyser Basin area, we noticed an enormous plume of steam rising from the area, and we knew from yesterday that there’s probably only one thing in the area capable of producing such a huge plume of steam: Steamboat Geyser.
Now, if you’re not familiar with Steamboat Geyser, it is the largest geyser in the world, shooting up to 300 ft plumes into the air. The problem with witnessing the eruption though is that it is traditionally very unpredictable, ranging anywhere from 4 days to 50 years between eruptions. However, when we were there yesterday, folks waiting there informed us that it had been going on a 6 to 7 day cycle for the past few weeks, which is why they were waiting, which we thought was insane.
Fast forward to this morning and lo and behold, Steamboat Geyser was erupting! It had started erupting at 2:34 AM, so we missed the most powerful portion of the eruption, but what we saw was absolutely awe inspiring. This is a view from across the basin, which is the only way we could show the entire plume, it was that big.
To put this into perspective, there are people standing on the boardwalk about half way between the base of the geyser and the boardwalk we were standing on. It’s hard to see because they are far away, but that’s how big it is. Here is a view much closer, right at the closest observation platform. It was not possible to get even a quarter of the plume in the picture.
And if that’s not clear enough, we took a picture of the entire Norris Geyser Basin from an overlook off the road north of the Norris Geyser Basin to show just how clearly it stands out, which is the featured image of this article at the top.
We remembered from yesterday that the Cistern Spring drains when Steamboat Geyser erupts, and sure enough, the spring level was definitely lower than the day before (it was filled all the way to the top).
This eruption is truly incredible in magnitude, length, and pretty much any other metric. I can only imagine what it is like at the first portion of the eruption, since we saw it nearly 7 hours after the eruption began and it was much less powerful.
Next, we had to drop the camper off at one of the oversize vehicle parking lots and head to the Bunsen Peak trail head. The views from the trail up were amazing, but the view at the top was the most incredible.
And here’s a picturesque view of Swan Lake with the Gallatin Mountain Range in the background. This was taken about halfway down from Bunsen Peak.
From there, we decided to drive the one-way road through the Upper Terraces area of the Mammoth Hot Springs. This is a picture of Angel Terrace, which was the best view along that road.
We then proceeded to tour the historical area of Mammoth Hot Springs where the visitor center is located and then headed up to the Main Terrace area parking to tour what we could from the boardwalks. Overall, the Mammoth Hot Springs were quite disappointing, as shown from this panorama from one of the overlooks looking down onto the Main Terrace.
The springs were quite dry, leaving only a few gems that were active. We both agreed that this was the best of what we saw in the whole Mammoth Hot Springs area, this is called Mound Terrace.
There were some honorable mentions, and in this case some interesting features we never expected. This picture shows some much larger terrace areas that had formed a hard crystallized covering over the pool formed by the terrace. There were also some pools that had gone completely dry, showing just how dynamic this area is.
After we had finished our tour of Mammoth Hot Springs, we decided to head to the campground to finish the day since it was threatening to rain and we needed to do laundry. Our campground is in Gardiner, MT, which gives us the pleasure of seeing the north entrance and the Roosevelt Arch to finish out our day.
