Hike #1: Lone Star Geyser (6/30/2012)

We headed out from our place in Mammoth down to the Old Faithful portion of the park.  On a good day it is about a 1 hour and 15 minute drive (to go about 50 miles), but the scenery is incredible.  On an unlucky day, you hit what is known to local park people as 'animal jams', where elk, bison, you name it spend some leisurely time in the roadway.  Of course, you can also hit what we are still trying to come up with a name for (please post any good ideas) - human gawkers.  Humans slow travel down substantially and really make travel straight up dangerous through the park at times, as people suddenly stop/swerve/exit vehicle into oncoming traffic to get a photo or gawk at local fauna.  We have all gawked before, the prevalence and hazard of it makes me much more conscientious now that we are parky's for a year.

Elk bedded down in Mammoth on hot summer day

We stopped at Old Faithful and visited the new, and very neat visitor center and hung out till the eruption.  A bison was on the boardwalk just opposite the visitor center on the other side of Old Faithful.  I was really hoping to be able to post a youtube video for you all to see, as gawkers, this time in pedestrian format walked within 5 feet of the grazing bison.  Katrina, being a NPS employee promptly yelled across the bubbling mudpots at the mob to break it up and remain 25 yards from all wildlife, especially bison.  After a few gawks in our direction, the crowd seemed to disperse some and find some common sense among themselves.  Last week a man was gored at Norris by a bison (turns out he was from MA), luckily he survived but with serious injury. I guess people don't realize that wildlife is wild, very unpredictable, especially under foreign circumstances (like hundreds of people surrounding it and firing off flashing lights...)

After Old Faithful our party (Ilija, Katrina, Austin, Brooke, and Kerry) headed a short jot to the Lone Star Geyser trailhead.  Lone Star geyser is about a 4 mile roundtrip hike on a mostly paved/gravel service road, dead ending at Lone Star.  The trail follows the Gibbons River (check to make sure), with a couple of bridge crossing that serve as nice swimming spots.  The trees along the way are mostly Lodgepole Pine and Englemann Spruce (I am not a silviculturist...).  You abruptly arrive at the geyser, as the forest gives way to the hot chemical mess that spouts forth from these geothermal features.  This open area provides excellent viewing from all sides of Lone Star.  Rick and Elaine Palmer had suggested this hike and we were not disappointed.  The geyser base is large and built up over many years.  Unlike Old Faithful, if you had the stupidity and cojones to approach the geyser, no thing or person would stop you as there is unimpeded space right up to the base of the thing.  An important key to this hike is to find out from the ranger station at Old Faithful when the last eruption was, as Lone Star is on a ~3 hour eruption cycle.  We arrived just in time for the eruption phase to begin.

Lone Star has about three different spots it spouts water and steam from.  It does this for about thirty minutes on the lead up to the final eruption.  When Lone Star erupts you will know it, as steam is escaping in just enough quantity and at such furious pace as to prevent it from exploding and blowing a hole in the ground (it seems).  It is truly magnificent and well worth the 4-5 mile round-trip walk.  You can sign the book in the register near Lone Star to commemorate your visit, if you do look for our signature on 7/1/2012  :)

Insert picture from Brooke and Kerry of Lone Star Hike