Finding Luck with the Less Faithful
This is not the Old Faithful geyser, but it is another geyser in Yellowstone National Park. There’s a good reason why this one is not named “Old Faithful”.
We were on a family vacation and walking along a wooden boardwalk through Porcelain Basin. I had seen this geyser blow from quite a distance, and it looked quite impressive, so I walked down to this geyser, set up my camera, and waited. Many people came by as we sat there. The printed guide in our hands indicated that this one should go about every 45 minutes or so. More than an hour went by and still no eruption. More people passed us by. Holding my sons hostage as we waited there, I began to feel somewhat like another boy of Dutch descent, Linus, waiting for the Great Pumpkin, and making Sally wait there when she could have been off having fun with others. Was I not sufficiently sincere? In this case, the Great Pumpkin did come. Finally, after I had begun taking down equipment and my sons had developed a year’s worth of patience and “character”, we heard some unusual gurgling sounds; this was my 5 seconds warning. The camera was hand-held because the tripod had already been taken down — not the ideal conditions I had hoped for. I did, however, end up with an adequate shot, and really liked the detail in the droplets of water, frozen by a modest 1/400s shutter speed.
Clearly, the 45-minute guideline was an average with some non-zero standard deviation. Even Old Faithful is not as faithful as it used to be. I left that location feeling a sense of victory, and a realization that I was fortunate to be able to see this eruption at all. There were several other geysers we visited which have much longer periods between eruptions. Imagine how lucky you would feel to be there when a geyser erupts for the first time in years.
Photo of the Week
2007.09.24
