Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Porcelain Basin is a vast, delicately tinted plain with many small geysers, hot springs, lakes,
and fumaroles. The western loop around this area and the walkway to Porcelain Terrace on
the east side are each about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) long. Part of the eastern walkway is wheelchair-
accessible.
Norris Geyser Basin in the History of Yellowstone
None of the famous early expeditions visited this geyser basin. It was not until 1872 that a
man named Eugene S. Topping and his companion happened to notice steam rising far to
the south from the top of Observation Peak (their name for present-day Bunsen Peak near
Mammoth). Topping and party were the first known visitors to the area, but Superintend-
ent Norris, for whom the basin is named, was the first to explore and describe it fully a few
years later.
Now there's no hotel at Norris, but a succession of facilities followed each other in this
area in the early years, ranging from tent camps and lunch stations to a rather fine hotel
opened in 1887 and destroyed by fire the same year.
Until 1966, the Grand Loop Road cut right through the center of Norris Geyser Basin.
Park officials moved the road to minimize the problems of human impact, traffic conges-
tion, steam on the windshields of passing cars, and danger to pedestrians, who had to cross
the highway to reach the geyser basin.
WALKING TOUR OF BACK BASIN
Just what Back Basin is “back” of is not obvious to present-day visitors, but the basin was in
back of the museum before the Grand Loop Road was rerouted.
NOTE: The Back Basin walkway may be accessible with assistance nearly to the southern corner of
been made stairless, so that if the star geysers Steamboat or Echinus should rejuvenate, more people will
see them.
