Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire a road in Yellowstone is melting.

Apparently a new hot spot is causing the road over it to melt. Its a fascinating place.



Hot Spot: Yellowstone Road Melts, Sites Closed
This undated photo provided by the National Park Service shows damage to a Yellowstone National Park road caused by the park�s ever-changing thermal features in the park in Wyoming. The hot, damaged pavement has prompted park officials to close Firehole Lake Drive and access to some geysers and thermal features at the height of summer tourist season. (AP Photo/Yellowstone National Park)


CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) � The ever-changing thermal geology of Yellowstone National Park has created a hot spot that melted an asphalt road and closed access to popular geysers and other attractions at the height of tourist season, officials said Thursday.

As they examined possible fixes, park officials warned visitors not to hike into the affected area, where the danger of stepping through solid-looking soil into boiling-hot water was high.

``There are plenty of other great places to see thermal features in the park,'' Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said. ``I wouldn't risk personal injury to see these during this temporary closure.''

Naturally changing thermal features often damage Yellowstone's roads and boardwalks. Steaming potholes in asphalt roads and parking lots � marked off by traffic cones � are fairly common curiosities.

However, the damage to Firehole Lake Drive is unusually severe and could take several days to fix. The 3.3-mile loop six miles north of Old Faithful takes visitors past Great Fountain Geyser, White Dome Geyser and Firehole Lake.

Unusually warm weather for Yellowstone � with high temperatures in the mid-80s � has contributed to turning the road into a hot, sticky mess.

``We've got some ideas. We're going to try them. Our maintenance staff has really looked at the issue,'' Nash said.

Global warming!

No, wait, that's not right....

Climate change!


Damn, that's not right either.....



That's crazy stuff, stepping into boiling water would ruin a good vacation.

I am experiencing involuntary eyebrow activity.

Maybe this hotspot can solve all the derision among Repubs and Dems for the next couple hundred years by have a little 'splosion.

Been heating up for years....

Yellowstone Lake has domed to the point that water is rising at the south end of the lake! That....ain't good! Read one article that stated that if it ever 'blew'....the eastern edge of the crater would be at the western edge of Minnysoda!!

RMulhern,
I think either the article mistated or you misunderstood. The edge of the crater probably wouldn't be past Cody, if that far. The edge of the ash cloud would easily reach Minnesota. The theory is that the ash and gasses in the atmosphere would reflect so much sun light that it would cause a "nuclear" winter situation.

As the article states, the landscape in Yellowstone is always changing. The dome under yellowstone lake keeps rising and falling and the one under Norris Geyser basin is just as active. Hundreds of small tremors vibrate the area all the time and occasionally a jolt big enough to feel will hit. Thermal features stop and start with all of this geologic activity. There are many places in the park where pavement has opened up from below and steams constantly. Walking off of the boardwalks in the thermal areas is a BAD idea.

SRMarksman

Thanks! Probably I misread it!

reminds me a lot of of the situation back in 79 AD, when the folks living in Pomepii just went about their daily lives, as if nothing was going to happen with their neighbor, Mt. Vesuvius.

Volcanoes often don't get the respect they deserve. That's why so many died from St Helens.

They have a real situation there. Maybe a concrete road would hold up better in this environment?

I assume there's steam under there. I wonder how strong the crust is. It would be disconcerting to have a road over a steam bath collapse under your car.

Can you imagine what John Coulter thought when he saw what is now Yellowstone?

Nobody believed Colter during his lifetime. He was dead by the time other explorers saw it and spread the word. He was among the many members of the L&C expedition who went back west and died within just a few years of the trip.

Yep, it wasn't until the Hayden expedition when pictures and paintings by John Murie were brought back that people actually believed that a place like Yellowstone could exist. Very shortly afterwards the movement to preserve it came into being. President Grant signed the bill creating the first National Park in the whole world. That was in 1872. The Park Circus didn't come about until 1916. The Army ran the parks before then. They had to move the troops out in 1915 for world war 1.

"Colter's Hell"

And just to increase the concerns, it's bigger than previously thought:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...e-supervolcano-eruption-magma-reservoir/

This happens in Houston every summer...

NBD

Snake

I said those very words the first time I saw that place.



Travis

If it blows, it will solve the border crisis and the national debt. Don't worry about it!