A Thermal Experience

It has been two months ago now. Two months ago that I moved from Billings to Bozeman. Two months ago that I was introduced to my new field crew who would see more of me than anyone else over the remainder of the MCC season. Almost two months ago that most of my crew and myself took a four day backpacking trip to Bechler region of Yellowstone national park. Bechler is a remote part of the park that has over 90% of all of Yellowstone's waterfalls. It is home to a large meadow stretching five miles in one direction and even longer the other direction. Continuing along the Bechler River, a hiker bares witness to waterfalls, cascades, steep canyon walls, and many thermal features.

Maggie, Katie, Joe, John, and I spent three nights enjoying the fall colors, the cool evenings, the starry nights and the soothing hot springs. This was my first experience sitting in a natural, boiling, hot spring. I spent two days in a hot spring affectionately called, Mr Bubbles. Mr Bubbles was a large spring that bubbled up from a large hole in the earth where a small thermal stream converged with the Bechler River. The closer you got to the erupting water from the center of Mr Bubbles, the more you could feel the violent vibrations of the stones that made up the bottom of the spring. It was intense. One couldn't help but wonder if it would at any given time just completely erupt like a geyser. The fear didn't keep us from standing right up next to the bubbling epicenter and eventually dig up the nerve to swim as fast as we could through it, scalding our skin as we thrashed about over it.

Wasting away an afternoon in the thermal waters of Mr. Bubbles

Looking down on Mr Bubbles

Searching for a spot where we weren't going to either scald our skin off, or freeze to death in the ice cold river water. No such luck, we quickly moved back to Mr Bubbles.