This hike was hours out of the closest large town, Montrose. We had to go camping in the next few weeks for Cub Scouts so we figured it was a good time (though the closest campsite was an hour away). The trail led to a geyser, the only one in Colorado. My dad read about it on Atlas Obscura and I immediately wanted to see it.
We got our backpacks on and headed out. We had barely gone anywhere, and with the parking lot only 100 feet behind us we crossed the small stream on a bridge. While walking across I saw a small waterfall upstream a few feet. I took a picture and then moved on. Then the trail headed up the ridge and it looked like we would get some switchbacks. We went up a little bit on the steep trail before stopping to put sunscreen on. In this section we saw a lot of horse dung. Soon we headed into the forest and began the second switchback. It was a tough hike up the second and most of the third switchback but we went anyway only stopping on some corners for water.
Then, at the end of the third switchback we saw a small field of rocks heading up the hillside like a large stream. At the bottom half covered by an overhang was a small blue pool. The pool continued to bubble up an inch or so. I took a video from a rock on the small ledge a little off the trail a few feet in front of it. “I hope the geyser didn’t get covered by a landslide,” I said in a joking way.
At the end of the fourth switchback, the path leveled out about 50 ft. from the top of the ridge. Also, the road split into two ways. One headed the rest of the way up and the other down the side of the ridge. A saw a stream near the bottom one and that meant the geyser was there too. This is because I read the geysers overflow runs into the stream after a few foot drop. This path headed out of the forest. Just when we headed back into the forest I saw the pool of the geyser.
It was a pool the size of a hot tub that was a pretty baby blue and bubbled up an inch or so. You could watch from the main place along the trail with the sign saying not to go to close. This area was a few feet above the pool but really close so I could see better. You could also go down right to the water's edge to the right of this and a little towards the back and the stream. We sat down to watch it for a few minutes. Then another group of people came and we told them it was erupting. Then, they left. I saw a large ball of moss floating around in the pool. I went up to see where the path actually ended. It went up a small hill and then it ended with nothing cool or interesting there, only large bushes. We found a place on the side of the hill 10 ft. away from the geyser. We sat down to eat lunch, crackers with salami and cheddar. Just as we were getting close to finished my dad said “I think the geyser is getting a little stronger.” We got up and it was splashing 3 or 4 inches high with some splashes 6 inches high. “This is the actual eruption!” I exclaimed. It was fairly loud and really cool. It sounded like lots of smooth popping noises as the hydrogen sulfide gases escaped the water. I was happy we spent this whole weekend around seeing it. It stayed like this for about 4 minutes before it calmed down.
We sat back down and finished lunch. Just then it started raining and we took cover under a nearby tree. It calmed down after a little bit. About 30 minutes after the first eruption there was another on and my mom got a video. I was ready so I could look from nearby and see the start of the eruption.
After it calmed down again a group of people arrived. We told them they had just missed the eruption. About five minutes later another group arrived and we all sat down. Just then it started to rain again. The other groups got out their umbrellas and we got out are rain jackets. It rained for five minutes before it calmed down. We waited until about 30 minutes after the 2 eruption. Now all of us started watching to see when the eruption would start. Then it erupted and we watched it. Halfway through it started raining harder than before and we decided to leave when it was over. It lasted 4 minutes like the other eruptions before it stopped.
This rain was so heavy we headed back before the other groups, but they all headed back very soon after. About halfway back down we heard thunder. We got back to the car after a long walk and I was finally able to relax as we headed to our campsite.
No comments:
Post a Comment