Bill-on-the-Hill

The destination (Yellowstone National Park, specifically the Upper Geyser Basin) and goal (geyser gazing, particularly at the elusive Giant Geyser) today were the same as yesterday, so let me dispense with the travelogue and get to the fun stuff: the sociology of the Geyser Gazer, including some really remarkable people, one of whom became our companion for an eerie and memorable evening. Still no Giant, alas, but a day to remember anyway. Let me recommend a return visit to the Web Site du Jour, http://www.geyserstudy.org/, which may be helpful in following some of this...

Old Faithful is probably the world's most famous geyser, and justly so; no other geyser in the world is simultaneously as frequent, as predictable, and as powerful. The untold thousands of visitors who flock to Yellowstone usually make it to the extensive visitor complex that has developed around Old Faithful, and most then hang around until an eruption occurs, congregating along the series of benches about a hundred yards away from the geyser. They usually don't have long to wait; the average interval between eruptions is roughly an hour and a half (btw, contrary to folklore, it has never been as short as an hour), and predictions for eruption time can usually be made with fairly high confidence of being correct to plus or minus ten minutes or so. Once the eruption has happened and the obligatory I-was-there pictures have been taken, the large majority of the observers then disperse to their cars and move on, confident that they have "seen" this part of Yellowstone. Little do they know…

A minority of visitors, however -- maybe 10 per cent -- don't settle for this experience, but rather, notice that the area behind Old Faithful, as seen from the main viewing area, is crisscrossed with a network of trail-like "boardwalks." If they have time, they may wander randomly on these, hoping to see something else go off before they go on their way. Their chances of seeing another eruption are actually pretty good; several of the other Upper Basin Geysers are frequent performers, for example the dainty little Anemone Geyser that erupts right next to the boardwalk every ten minutes or so, or the unusual Sawmill Geyser that is in eruption about a third of the time. Having seen these, or if they're lucky, one of the big guys, most visitors then depart, satisfied that they've had a "real" geyser-gazing experience. In this they're half right, anyway, but there's still a lot more to be done. And in fact, maybe 10% of that 10% do go for more: they check out the predictions posted at the visitor center for one of the four other predictable geysers in the Basin, hang around until one goes off (Daisy Geyser is the most frequent, and a good "beginner's" geyser for this purpose), and almost invariably are delighted to have gone to the effort, because several of these are really wonderful things to see.

For a smaller fraction of visitors yet, the fun has just begun at this point. These are the hard cores, the ones who sit for hours (often at night or in vile weather) waiting for some particularly spectacular and unpredictable geyser to go off, tote 2-way radios around to hear what their colleagues are doing at the other rarely-seen geysers, speak in a cryptic language of their own to report portentous activity, and revel in getting drenched when a major geyser close to the boardwalk goes off (maybe for the first time in months) and hoses them down. These, in other words, are the people we were joining on this trip, the Geyser Gazers. And at the pinnacle of them all is the remarkable "Sonia."

"Sonia" values her privacy, and to help maintain it I will disguise certain of the facts that follow, although any Gazers reading this should have no trouble figuring out who she is. She's a young professional musician from Idaho whose career, and notably supportive family (she notes that Geyser Gazers made up half the people at her wedding, and her husband, when not away on Army duty, is an inveterate Gazer himself), make it possible for her to spend long -- incredibly long -- stretches of time in the Basin, waiting for one rarely-seen geyser or another. Sonia describes herself as a "Calvinist" when it comes to geyser gazing -- "I believe that I was predestined to watch geysers." And she doesn't just watch; she observes, with an eye for geyser minutiae that combines an artist's sense of the intangible, a master craftsman’s attention to detail, and a scientist's craving for order and logic. As a result, she may know more about the behavior of Giant and its similarly elusive colleagues than anyone else in the world -- and it's never enough. She must, must, MUST see more, to know more, to understand more -- and I would say, to love the geysers more. I have met few people in my life who have the pure passion for anything that Sonia has for her geysers. I admire her greatly.

These are the people that Emily and I would spend this day with. It wasn't a great day for geyser gazing; the weather was cold and damp as we settled in at "the Cage" for a Giant vigil, and although we knew what was coming and were well prepared with raingear and warm clothing, there came a time when it was just necessary to retreat to a nearby stand of trees and huddle for warmth. Well, warmth, and protection from lightning; the Basin is mainly a barren, treeless place, and if an electrical storm comes along, you really don't want to be out in the open there. Throw in the fact that I'm a big chicken about lightning, and at the first (and, as it turned out, only) clap of thunder, I was off to a hidey-hole among these few trees. Emily, for who knows what reason, just pulled up her anorak hood and stayed at the Cage. I don't know what she was thinking; she's normally the cautious one of the family. But geyser gazing is in her blood, too.

So on the day went, and eventually it cleared off and we were able to resume the vigil at the Cage, under warmer and drier conditions, with a reduced number of curious non-gazers wandering through. (I have mixed feelings about this, as I’ll get back to tomorrow.) Giant continued to be uncooperative; there were a few weak hot periods, but it never looked seriously like erupting. A word here about just what a “hot period” entails. Giant’s huge cone sputters and splashes much of the time, even when no eruption is imminent, and small, nearby Bijou Geyser is also in near-perpetual eruption. Every now and then, however, Bijou shuts off, and water begins to rise in the pool of the normally quiescent Mastiff Geyser – and the Gazers get excited, because this signals the possible onset of a hot period, when the underground plumbing of this group of geysers is fully recharged and Giant may be ready to go. Other little geyserlings on the platform, each with its own name assigned by the Gazers and unofficial, but widely used and understood – Feather, Feather’s Satellite, Cave, and so on – may join the party, like the opening acts for a mega-star of rock music, getting the audience to a fever pitch of excitement while waiting for the big guy to show up. And hoo boy, does the “audience” ever get excited. The tension in the Cage becomes palpable, the radios crackle with traffic, and the attention of Gazers all over the Upper Basin becomes fixed on Giant. If all goes well, the splashing in Giant itself increases, and a surge of water puts the Gazers into rhapsodies of anticipation.

And then, alas, most of the time the hubbub subsides; the secondary vents stop erupting (cessation of “Feather” is a particularly disheartening sign), water in Mastiff drops, and the hot period ends, with the disappointment in the Cage just as thick as the excitement was earlier. (Every now and then, the reclusive superstar does put in an appearance … just not while we were watching.) So it went all day; the hot periods just weren’t leading to eruptions. Finally most of the Gazers headed off to get some food, leaving Emily, me, Sonia, and another neophyte Gazer whose name I didn’t catch to maintain the watch. We got to chatting with Sonia about this and that, until she and the other guy too headed off for food, leaving us to “geyser-sit” as darkness fell…

I wish I could describe the next hour adequately, but I can’t. Having Giant (or more accurately Grotto, because it’s tied to Giant in ways that Sonia and a few others understand and she needed help in monitoring its own activity for clues to Giant’s, so we spent our time there) entirely to oneself in the darkness of a moonless night is eerie. You wonder what else is out there – not just the obvious elk and bison (although even they can do you terminal damage if you stumble across one in a bad mood), but also the famous bears of Yellowstone, which do kill the occasional visitor, seriously. And something in your viscera doesn’t settle for wondering about the actual critters of the night; it begins to speculate on the mythical, hidden ones. The Manitou … the Wendigo … the Chepi … your intellect knows they’re all imaginary, but at times like this, your innards have an entirely different view of the matter. This is a spooky thing to do. (And to be sure, we were glad we did it.)

Eventually Sonia returned, and the mood became lighter again as we discussed this, that and the next thing. Sonia said she was ready to stay until 3 in the morning(!) if necessary to catch the start of the next Grotto eruption, so that she could get the data she needed for predicting Giant’s behavior the next day. Alone in the wilderness at such an hour? Not a problem, at least for Sonia; she knows the bears are bedding down and unlikely to be aggressive (although we'd still worry about her later), she’s prepared with excellent cold-weather and raingear, and above all, the Cage is Home to her. We, however, wimped out at about 11, and decided to let her have the Cage to herself, as we had for an hour … and then, just as we were leaving …

… Sonia noticed – don’t ask me how – that the water in Mastiff was rising. She must have felt this development through some sixth sense, because it was pitch dark and you couldn’t see the change without keeping a flashlight directly on the pool. But sure enough, she was right. One last hot period for this day was starting. Moments later, Feather, Feather’s Satellite, and all the other minor features of the platform began their play, as if to celebrate the coming of their master …

… But he never appeared. The hot period passed, just as all the others had, without Giant blasting forth. It was as though the subterranean regions were giving us one last, teasing glimpse of what they could do – while concealing the real glories for those who are more patient than we. Like, say, Sonia, who indeed watched late into the night -- but even she went away empty-handed this time, and she was a bit, well, cross when we encountered her the next day. We, for our part, abandoned her to her quest, and finally made it back to West Yellowstone around midnight, hoping that Giant would hold off for one more night until we could make it back to the Basin the next day.