Yellowstone National Park - Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks - page 162

LOWER GEYSER BASIN
Separate roads access the three main sections of this sprawling thermal basin: the main
Grand Loop Rd passes Fountain Paint Pot; the one-way Firehole Lake Dr loops off the
main road to Great Fountain and other geysers; and Fountain Flat Dr offers access to hik-
ing trails and minor thermal features. The latter two roads both offer the potential for a
short bike ride.
FIREHOLE LAKE DRIVE
Firehole Lake Dr is a one-way, 3-mile road starting 2 miles north of Midway Geyser Bas-
in and about 1 mile south of the Fountain Paint Pot parking lot. It passes several pretty
pools and large geysers, including lovely Firehole Spring and then huge Great Fountain
Geyser , which soars up to 200ft in a series of wide staccato bursts every 11 hours or so.
Eruption times are predicted by the visitor center at Old Faithful to within a couple of
hours, and you'll often find people waiting with a picnic lunch and a good book. The
crater begins to overflow 90 minutes before an eruption and violent boiling signals an im-
minent eruption. Eruptions can last one hour.
The nearby 30ft cone of White Dome Geyser usually erupts every half-hour or so. The
geyser is the symbol of the Yellowstone Association (see boxed text Click here ). Nearby
Pink Cone Geyser gets its color from manganese dioxide deposits. A road was built right
across the side of this cone in the 1930s.
Firehole Lake is a large hot spring ringed by several small geysers, including the ra-
ging waters of Artemisia Geyser and the sensuous black-and-tan smoothness of Young
Hopeful.
Runoff from Firehole Lake flows into Hot Lake (also known as Black Warrior Lake)
across the road, which offers more geysers and even a small cascade of boiling water.
Steady Geyser is in continual eruption through one of two vents.
FOUNTAIN PAINT POT
Roughly midway between Madison Junction and Old Faithful, Fountain Paint Pot Nature
Trail takes in four types of thermal features along a 0.5-mile boardwalk loop. The Foun-
tain Hotel, one of the park's earliest lodges, was located here until 1917.
Just past pretty Silex Spring, Fountain Paint Pot is a huge bowl of plopping goop that
ranks as one of the biggest in the park. The action is sloppiest in spring, with some mud
pots drying up by August. The area around the thermal features is slowly being drowned
in deposits, while, beyond, a grassy basin supports the park's largest bison herd.
The mud pots are the top-billed comedians of the show. Red Spouter is particularly in-
teresting, since it acts like a muddy hot spring in early summer, only to become a mud pot
and then a fumarole later in the year. It only appeared after the huge Hebgen Lake earth-