Lone Star Geyser, the Hermit of Yellowstone Nat. Park, Wyo.

Publication

Lone Star Geyser, the Hermit of Yellowstone Nat. Park, Wyo.

Description

LONE STAR GEYSER, THE HERMIT OF YELLOWSTONE. Although the greatest of the geyser basins are now behind us, the traveler is richly rewarded who turns aside from the main road about 3 miles S. of Old Faithful and makes a short side trip to see Lone Star Geyser in its sylvan setting amid the forests bordering Spring Creek. The eruptions of Lone Star, which occur about once in 3 hours and last for some 10 minutes, do not compare in magnitude with those of some of the monsters farther N., though there is grace and beauty in the slender 50-foot stream thrown from its central vent. But its erect cone, 12 ft. high and about 9 ft. in diameter, is the most symmetrical and perfect in the Park and of strikingly delicate external structure and coloring. Immediately beyond Lone Star Geyser begins a vast wilderness, embracing the whole Southwestern portion of the Park, which is less known than any other part of it. Indeed, this so-called "Cascade Corner" was never thoroughly explored until 1921, when many of the beautiful water falls of the Bechler River received their names and other interesting features were discovered among the forested valleys of the Falls River Basin and the immense uplands of Pitchstone Plateau. In that direction, too, lie other geyser basins, accessible by horseback trail, which are second in magnitude only to those of the Firehole and the Gibbon. Five miles S. of Lone Star, on the W. Shore of Shoshone Lake, is the Shoshone Geyser Basin. Its most notable features are Bronze Geyser, so named because of the metallic luster of its cone and Union Geyser, remarkable for possessing three active craters of which the central one plays to a height of 100 ft. (View looking S. Elev. 7,700 ft. Lat. 44° N.; Long. 111° W.)