Castle Geyser
— — a cone the water has been building for centuries.
Not only on a wall.
“The big sinter cone on the bench above the Firehole River. Castle does not perform like Old Faithful, three hundred yards south, but it has been here longer. The eruption comes about twice a day, a tall water phase followed by a long roar of steam that carries down the boardwalk. The cone itself is the slow work of mineral-rich water laying down silica, grain by grain, for what geologists estimate is several thousand years. Quiet between shows. from the studio
Castle Geyser, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Castle Geyser stands in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone, on the west bank of the Firehole River about a quarter mile north of Old Faithful. The cone is the largest of any geyser in the park, roughly twelve feet high and built entirely of geyserite, the silica that hot water leaves behind as it cools. The basin holds the densest concentration of active geysers in the world, more than 150 within one square mile. Castle is reached by the paved Geyser Hill loop, an easy walk from the Old Faithful visitor area.
Eruptions arrive on roughly a fourteen-hour interval and run in two distinct acts. The water phase lasts about twenty minutes and throws a column near ninety feet. The steam phase follows for thirty to forty minutes, audible from the boardwalk and visible from across the basin. The mineral that builds the cone is amorphous silica, dissolved underground from the rhyolite of the Yellowstone caldera and deposited at the surface when the water flashes to steam. Geologists at the U.S. Geological Survey have estimated the cone took several thousand years to reach its current size.
The Upper Geyser Basin is open year round, though winter access from late October to mid-December and again in March requires snowcoach or skis from Mammoth or West Yellowstone. The Old Faithful Visitor Education Center posts predicted eruption windows for Castle, Grand, Daisy, and Riverside, usually within a two-hour range. Park entrance is currently thirty-five dollars per vehicle for seven days, or eighty dollars for an annual America the Beautiful pass. The nearest lodging is the Old Faithful Inn, which closes for the season in early October.