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Hi. I’m Ben Benton from Flagstaff, Arizona. I believe that you will enjoy my daily journal from Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 1999. I left downtown Flagstaff with my saddle and duffel in early July and lighted in the horse corral at Mammoth Hot Springs. My journal will continue through September 20th, unless the weather shuts us down earlier. You’ll read about adventures on the back country trails, Yellowstone history, people I meet, and anything else I can think of to write about. I’m the author of “National Park Employment Data,” a guide to working in national parks, which is available for purchase on my web site at www.gorp.com/nped/. I’ve been working in national parks and ski areas off and on for over twenty years. Because I want the data in my book to always be fresh, I continually test the concepts, employers, and tips that I provide. Right now, I’m working for Amfac Parks and Resorts. They are a top notch concession company because they place employee training, morale, and amenities first. |
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Previous 7/16 |
Wednesday, 8-11-99It rained nearly all day, so I didn’t go fishing. After lunch I set out for Old Faithful but it started raining so hard I couldn’t see the road. I turned around and spent the afternoon reading. Today is “employee appreciation day” so the managers served the employees in the employee dining room. We had New York strip steaks, salmon in a vibrant sauce, broccoli and artichoke hearts souffle, snow peas and asparagus, twice baked potatoes, and cheesecake. The tables were dressed up with candles. I’m stuffed. After dinner I drove to Norris Geyser Basin and arrived just in time to see Echinus Geyser erupt. I was walking the back basin trail and came upon a crowd of nearly fifty, so I assumed the geyser was getting ready to blow. I was right. Echinus is in a pool water that fills slowly, then starts to boil, then bursts forth with steam and water up to 60 feet for about ten minutes. Echinus is the world’s largest acid-water geyser; the waters are almost as acidic as vinegar. Acidic water geysers are so rare that most of the acidic geysers in the world are at Norris. Right next to Echinus is the world’s tallest active geyser, Steamboat Geyser. It erupts 280 to 300 feet showering bystanders with its mineral-rich waters. The only problem is that is only erupts every fifty years or so; actually it has erupted twice in five days in the past, and prior to the October 1991 eruption it erupted in 1990. There’s been no major eruption since 1991. The entire world has less than 400 active geysers and Yellowstone has about 250 of them. Of Yellowstone’s 250, about 180 of those are in the Old Faithful area, called Upper Basin. Basically hot water and steam emerge from the earth’s depths in thermal areas in one of four ways: as geysers, which are outlets for superheated water forced upward but constricted at some point, then pressurized and flashed into steam; as hot springs, which are similar to geysers except that there is no constriction, so the chain reaction leading to an eruption never occurs; as fumaroles, which are hot springs without enough water to flow, so steam emerges; and as mud pots, which form where acid breaks down the surrounding rock into clay, which mixes with water to form bubbling mud.  |
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