Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
As you leave Beehive, there are several minor geysers to your right (northeast) above the
boardwalk. All are difficult to see and not currently active, though they may bubble or steam.
Depression Geyser's
blue-green pool west of the boardwalk looks quiet until it erupts 6 to
10 feet (2-3 m); this happens every few hours. Beyond Depression, one or more of a group of
small geysers called The Dwarfs may be spouting as you pass.
Arrowhead
and
Heart Springs
are quiet pools whose shapes illustrate their names, except
that Arrowhead may have got its name from an artifact found within it.
The Lion Geyser Group has four cones. The largest and closest to the boardwalk is
Lion
Geyser.
It roars like a lion when it gushes steam from its vent before all but the first of its cyc-
lic eruptions, and its formation looks to some like a reclining lion when seen from the south.
Farther back from the boardwalk, right to left as you stand near Lion, are
Big Cub, Lioness,
and
Little Cub Geysers.
Lion has five- or six-minute eruptions up to 70 feet (21 m) and always plays in a series of
eruptions spaced one to one-and-a-half hours apart. In the past ten years its mean between
cycles has increased from about 9 to 15 hours. Lioness and Big Cub have been inactive in re-
cent years but sometimes boil vigorously. Little Cub erupted frequently to 10 feet (3 m) but
has been erratic since 2004. The washed look of Little Cub's formation tells you it is a frequent
geyser, never dormant, in fact, in the history of the park.
In 1889 a British visitor toured the Upper Geyser Basin, noted the “pretty and fanciful”
names assigned to all the geysers, and wrote about the group you see here: “The first mound
that I encountered belonged to a goblin splashing in his tub. I heard him kick, pull a shower-
bath on his shoulders, gasp, crack his joints, and rub himself down with a towel; then he let
the water out of the bath, as a thoughtful man should, and it all sank down out of sight till
another goblin arrived. Yet they called this place the Lioness and the Cubs.” The visitor was
the 24-year-old Rudyard Kipling.
Goggles Spring
and
North Goggles Geyser
are just beyond the Lion Group. Around
North Goggle's cone, note the interesting formation of geyser eggs, built up during its some-
times impressive but very irregularly occurring eruptions. To turn back toward Old Faithful,
take the right-hand fork at the walkway intersection (see
pages 97-99
for the features you will
see).
Heading away from Geyser Hill, the main path now takes you through the trees along the
Firehole River. You pass nondescript thermal pools, one called Frog Pond, because it actually
has frogs in springtime, and Liberty Pool. The last spring was named after its first eruption on
July 4, 1887. Across the river,
Sprinkler Geyser
may be spouting, as it does at least half the
time.
