Geyser Watch

Old Faithful in Eruption as seen from Geyser Hill

As with any subject, the way people take field notes seems to develop over time for each person. One question I had when first paying closer attention to the thermal features was this mystery of what type of things should be recorded. Obviously the time of eruptions was a key item to note. Many geyser gazers only do this. If you take a look at the calendar, you’ll notice how they list the geyser, and next to it, a list of the eruption times given in 24 hour clock format. Many set up their daily page or two with the geyser names – ready to take the times down. I did this for a time as well, but quickly found it lacked the depth that helps me to remember. I want to recall whether the wind was calm or fierce (some geysers seem very affected by wind and changes in the weather), the time spent watching an osprey fish the river, or visiting with other gazers. But this is a good way to start unraveling the rhythm of the main geysers.

• Artemisia
• Aurum
• Beehive Ind
• Beehive
• Castle
• Daisy
• etc.

The Visitor Education Center at Old Faithful keeps a similar type system – using a custom made 8.5 x 11 book. This image can be downloaded at a printable size here.

Others of us put each observation on a new line. This past trip, I used boxes around geyser names to indicate eruptions and underlined the thermal feature names to indicate non-eruptive observations. I like how this worked. I could easily add whether I personally witnessed an eruption or if it was a call on the radio or from the notes of another gazer. The biggest challenge for me this trip was to slow down enough to really take notes. It’s tempting to just take a quick note, photo and move on. But slowing myself a bit more allowed me to take more detailed notes that help to bring back the moment to my mind.

Here’s a page from the notebook I used this last time.

I’ve only written on one side of the page because I want to figure out a way to add these pages to my main scrapbook binders – or to create a binder just for my Yellowstone trips (still up in the air on that one). I’m also playing with a general format for journal entries – the write ups that include more complete descriptions as well as the photos taken. Consistency in whatever format I choose is what will make it work as a good reference.