WHILE OLD FAITHFUL usually steals the show for first-time visitors to Yellowstone National Park, Beehive Geyser is one of the many impressive, but lesser known geysers that keep me interested in the Park’s thermal features long after I’ve memorized the geyser basins.

“A hundred yards distant from The Giantess was a silicious cone, very symmetrical but slightly corrugated upon its exterior surface, three feet in height and five feet in diameter at its base, and having an oval orifice twentyfour by thirty-six and one-half inches in diameter, with scalloped edges. Not one of our company supposed that it was a geyser; and among so manywonders it had almost escaped notice. While we were at breakfast upon the morning of our departure a column of water, entirely filling the crater, shot from it, which, by accurate triangular measurement, we found to be two hundred and nineteen feet in height. The stream did not deflect more than four or five degrees from a vertical line, and the eruption lasted eighteen minutes. We named it ‘The Beehive.'”
–Nathaniel P. Langford

Watching Beehive is like seeing (and hearing) a rocket engine blast water water out of the ground to over 200 feet. Its eruption schedule varies from 14-24 hours, so being there at exactly the right time will require some research with the Park Service, but seeing a feature that most people miss is often worth the wait.

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Eric Warren has an unhealthy love of  all types of transportation, and is addicted to long stretches of open road.