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Mickey Hot Spring


Last night I was killing time in the worst possible way: flipping channels on the television. But every so often you get rewarded. In this case I stumbled across a documentary which had a segment on small fish living in Borax Lake in Oregon's Lake Alvord desert area. The narrator mentioned geothermal activity being important, and knowing that there are geysers in the area, I decided to stick around and see if they had any real information.

The show was Oregon Field Guide, produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting. This episode was first broadcast on 01 February 2007,which means that it was probably filmed during the summer of 2006.

After the segment ended began a "photo-essay" on Mickey Hot Spring. So there was more information. Mickey is known to have geyser activity, and would it appear here? After the usual obligatory shots of things like dead dragonflies in a tepid, watery mud-pot, the camera operator concentrated on a small sputtering feature. I noticed that it appeared that the intensity of this sputtering varied, and in backcountry areas, that's always a good sign that a feature is worth watching some more.

In this case, the payoff came just as the credits started to roll. Suddenly the little pool next to the sputtering vent started to erupt, to maybe a foot or so, but it was a definite eruption. It might have lasted only a few seconds, but that's hard to tell thanks to the editing. But at least we have documentary proof of geyser activity at Mickey in 2006.

Unfortunately, the show's website doesn't include this clip, so you'll have to hope your local PBS station(s) show it. Here in the Seattle area, according to the listings it was suppsed to be rebroadcast again during this week on KCTS Channel 9, but now the updated listings don't show it.