Old Faithful Geyser

When traveling to Yellowstone National Park, many people feel like they cannot leave the park without making a visit to the well known Old Faithful geyser. It is a cone geyser which makes its home in Wyoming, on the national park land and Is probably the most famous geyser in the world.

This famous geyser was given its name in 1870, and was the first geyser located in the park to have a name. Old Faithful was dubbed as such during the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition, and is in what is now the old faithful historic district.

It was September 18, 1870 when members of the expedition made their way down the Firehole River from the Kepler Cascades and came upon the Upper Geyser Basin. The first geyser that they came across was Old Faithful, and was documented by Langford in his 1871 diary of the journey. When the park was young, this geyser was very often used as a place to do laundry, which many felt was degrading to the integrity of the natural wonder. The men did learn, however, that linens and cottons were unaffected by the powerful eruption, but wool clothing was ruined by the power of the blast.

Generally, when Old Faithful erupts, it can easily shoot between 3,700 and 8,400 gallons of water at the boiling level more than 150 feet in the air. The eruptions last between 90 seconds and five minutes, depending on how powerful they are. The average eruption of Old Faithful averages about 145 feet in height, and the highest record ever set was 185 feet. Generally the eruptions occur every 90 minutes, but this can also vary between 45 and 125 minutes depending on the particular conditions. There have been over 137,000 eruptions recorded, and even though Old Faithful isn’t the biggest geyser in the park, it’s still the most popular by far.

There were measurements taken of Old Faithful between 1983 and 1994, measuring depths and temperatures, to make sure the natural wonder was still in tact and operating as it should. The water was 244 degrees Fahrenheit at 72 feet deep, which is the same measurement that was recorded in 1942. Even though these measurements are the same as they once were, the geyser is erupting more frequently than ever, which many attribute to earthquakes that affect the subterranean water levels.

These changes have not affected anything that is essentially necessary, and have actually made Old Faithful easier to predict. The predictability of this geyser is attributed to the fact that it is unrelated to other geysers in the park, and is why it was rightly dubbed with the name Old Faithful. When visiting Yellowstone National Park on your next national park vacation, you certainly don’t want to miss this world famous landmark.