Castle Geyser

Erupts about every 14 hours, and a typical major eruption has a 20 minute water phase.

Plan Around Castle Geyser

A good stop is not just something to read about. Once it belongs on the day, move into a saved trip and build the route around it.

Add to trip View park guide

Use this detail page to confirm that the stop is worth it, then carry that decision into a trip draft while the park context is still fresh.

Castle Geyser Details

Each geyser has its own unique personality. For example, Castle erupts about every 14 hours, and a typical major eruption has a 20 minute water phase, followed by a 30 minute steam phase. As spectacular as this water phase is, many visitors actually favor the very noisy and powerful steam phase as their favorite part of the eruption. As a contrast, Old Faithful Geyser erupts about every 90 minutes, much more frequently than Castle, but Old Faithful only lasts 2 to 4 minutes. So if you ever hear someone say, "If you've seen one geyser, you've seen them all," nothing could be further from the truth. All geysers change. They may become dormant. They may reactivate. Their intervals between eruptions may shorten, or lengthen. Most of this change is a direct result of earthquakes. Yellowstone receives over 2000 earthquakes each year. Most of these quakes are small and cannot be felt, but even a small quake can rearrange a geyser's plumbing system, causing a change in its behavior. As an example, notice that Castle Geyser sits up on top of a large mound of geyserite. This is characteristic of an overflowing hot spring, so for most of its life Castle must have been a hot spring that eventually turned into a geyser. Given the size of the mineral formation of Castle, this geyser is probably one of the oldest in the park, perhaps well over one thousand years old. Source: National Park Service, Exploring the Upper Geyser Basin, Orville Bach

Difficulty

Low

Distance

N/A

Estimated time

Region

N/A