M.A.Bellingham recently came across a photo in which I am "figure". Here's what I remember of that visit, which, after 35 years, may not be accurate.
Over the winter in 1986, probably in February, a snowcoach driver reported seeing a huge steamcloud off to the west of Norris. By July, someone had visited the area, and reported that there was at least one new, deep crater there, which had uprooted trees in what appeared to be a non-thermal area.
On 31 Jul 1986, Rick Hutchinson went out to investigate, and I tagged along. He parked at the large turnout in Elk Park, southwest of Norris. We forded the river and headed off to the north. The meadow area was pretty dry, so we didn't need to deal with marshy areas. We then we headed through the trees. Rick pointed out at one point that we were passing through a very old sinter shield area. For some old trees that had fallen over, and the white sinter among the roots was obvious.
As we approached the blowout crater, we went along a creek. For about 50 meters (or more), there were a series of frying pans in the bed of the creek. I don't remember if we were headed upstream or down. The blowout was near the creek.
Rick knew what to expect, as part of the gear he had brought out was a rope for rappelling into the crater so he could take samples of the water and soil and rocks. I told him that I didn't know how to help him if he got in trouble, but he said that there shouldn't be any problem. He also brought a small saw, in order to cut one of the tree trunks that had been snapped off and then count the rings, and get an idea of how long it had been since there had been thermal activity there.
So while Rick was down in the crater, I picked a nice sized tree and cut off the section. We counted 75 rings on a tree that had been alive when the eruption happened. I'm not sure what sort of things Rick collected, but he never needed my assistance while down in the pit.
As for a name, at the time I thought that "Sizzling Creek" would be a nice, bland, almost generic name that still was descriptive of a memorable feature of the area.