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Hot springs quake lake7/8/2023 ![]() ![]() Our next stop is a shorter excursion: a drive by Pink Cone, the shell-pink sinter cone that erupts with a steady, 30-foot column of water which tapers off and resurges, over and over. Best to leave it to the imagination.Īfter a discussion of “thermal feature habitat” (as with animals, Linda explains, characteristics within the landscape itself can hold clues as to the presence of thermal features), we leisurely retrace our steps and load the cars. It’s tempting to dip a finger in, or even thrust an entire hand into the seething brown mass, just to see what it feels like-but the sweltering steam gives us pause. We gather around a large pool and stare, entranced by its slow, rhythmic pulsating. Mud stalagmites rise all around, formed by the accumulated deposits of repeated bubble-bursts. A creamy taupe color, they look like boiling drywall mud. Linda leads us into a copse off to the right, and as the trees clear we find ourselves at the edge of a wide sink, where massive mud pots sputter and splash. A graveyard of charred tree trunks on the facing slope gives compelling testimony: their roots scorched by the boiling water, the lifeless trees now form a “thermal burn.” Climbing out of the flat, we cross a high plain scattered with small groves of lodgepole pine. During the earthquake of 1959 (the one that formed Quake Lake), subterranean thermal activity shifted up the far side of the lakebed. As we cross the old lakebed, Linda explains how a series of underground channels-“earth’s plumbing”, she calls it-profoundly affects the landscape we’re traversing. It’s now a sprawling flat peppered with thermal features. “She always takes me to places I’d never find on my own.” We leave the river near Pocket Basin, where, as Linda tells us, a hydrothermal explosion blew out an ancient lake long ago. “I love going to the park with Linda,” she says in a half-whisper, like it’s a secret reluctantly revealed. During an extended stop at a particularly effervescent spring, the designer leans toward me. ![]() Equally fascinated by the striking thermal features and Linda’s lively naturalist commentary, we strike an immediate rapport. Our conversations are diverse and lively. Our group is an eclectic one-an antique store owner from Bozeman a local designer and entrepreneur a senior staff member of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a photographer from Livingston, Linda, and myself. Still audible are the muffled thunder-claps of bubbles bursting in a cavernous mud pot we’d passed a half-mile back. Weaving in and out of the ubiquitous hot springs, we watch our steps carefully-a trip-up and subsequent plunge into one of these 200-degree pools would mean certain death. To our right meanders the Firehole River, its indigo water warmed by the hundreds of hot springs flowing into it. As we make our way down a broken game trail, our only company is an osprey circling overhead and a few mountain bluebirds flitting around the trees on our left. And many of them are a ways off the road, so you’ll often have them to yourself.” That’s certainly the case right now. “The Lower Basin has a little bit of everything,” she says, “colorful geyser cones, explosive eruptions, huge pools of simmering mud. It’s the largest of the Park’s 12 major geyser basins, and according to her, the most interesting. ![]() Today’s setting-and one of her all-time favorite spots-is the Lower Geyser Basin, 12 square miles of steaming hot springs, spouting geysers, bubbling mud pots, and hissing fumaroles. Spry and cheerful at 57, she’s got a hiker’s legs and lungs, a schoolteacher’s patience, and the accumulated knowledge that comes from over three decades spent exploring Yellowstone’s inimitable natural environment. And with Linda guiding us, we’re sure to hear about them all. Such are the lesser-known wonders of Yellowstone National Park-remarkable natural phenomena hidden in the most unlikely places, the most enigmatic environs. An enzyme from one particular thermophile, Thermus aquaticus, allowed the development of our most accurate HIV test and the forensic application of DNA fingerprinting. These hot-water denizens have been used in the breakdown of toxic oil and paint, the conversion of corn to ethanol, and the removal of sulfur from coal. But as bleak and sterile as the steaming pool appears, explains Linda Wallace, our Yellowstone Country Adventures guide for the day, it’s home to thousands of microorganisms called “thermophiles.” Not only can they withstand the scalding water and seemingly barren environment, she tells us, but they’re highly prized by scientists and researchers. The intensely alkaline water looks as inhospitable as it smells-this is no place for an impromptu hot-tubbing session. ![]() Peering into the surging, superheated water of Ojo Caliente, the rising steam brings an acrid, sulfurous stench to our nostrils. Learning about Yellowstone's thermal features. ![]()
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