Grand Geyser and the Triplets


Was in the process of doing a final backup of a computer that I bought in 2006 and is having problems restarting. I keep it around mostly to run a few programs that won't run on newer machines because those programs only work on a PowerPC processor.

Was looking through a directory of photos and came across a few that I'd forgotten about. I believe these came to me via Rocco Paperiello back in late 2008, and are part of a package of documents he found concerning the building of the first boardwalks in the Upper Geyser Basin. So they date back to the early 1950s or so.

This one of Grand and vicinity is interesting for a number of reason. In the background is the new boardwalk, pretty much at its current position. You can see a pile of lumber and a couple of people working on it.

In the lower left are a couple of craters which I believe are North Triplet on the right, and East Triplet on the left. These would correspond the Grand Sputs of today, with Sput D/Delta on the right and Sputnik/Sput B on the left. It looks like Percolator can be seen as a dark spot if one draws a line between the leftmost crater and the pile of lumber. Note that the feature we called East Triplet in the early 1980s would have been located above and to the left of the vent here.

But also note the number of posts in the ground around the area, and the directions they face. Not just the ones by North Triplet and Grand, but behind the latter sign, beyond Turban, is another post. There's also a fourth, short post between the right most North Triplet vent and Percolator. Also of interest is that the Grand sign is positioned to be read by a person on the hillside, while the North Triplet side faces away.

A second photo is a slide that was probably made a few years later. Notice style of the West Triplet sign hasn't changed much. But also, there was a little boardwalk spur leading out toward Grand with another sign log at its end.