I recently made a day trip from the Bay Area to Gerlach, Nevada which is famous for hosting Burning Man each year but is also the home of Fly Geyser. I had wanted to photograph in this area for a while, but it was on private property and permission to access was difficult or impossible to obtain. The property was eventually purchased by the Burning Man Project and tours are now available through the Friends of Black Rock High Rock. At this time, tours are offered on Saturday mornings and evenings and I booked an evening tour in the hopes of getting some good late afternoon light.
As it turned out, it was 107°F on the day I visited. The tour (described as a “nature walk”) normally includes some Burning Man structures and then several other small geysers before ending at Fly Geyser. They cut the geyser portion short due to the heat, which gave us more time at Fly Geyser itself. As it turned out, the timing worked well with warm late afternoon light enhancing the colors of the geyser against the clear blue skies.
Fly Geyser isn’t a fully natural structure, but it also isn’t artificial. The area is home of several natural hot springs. Digging on the property hit one of those springs, and then the geyser began to grow naturally. The colors come from the minerals carried by the water as it sprays over the structure. A boardwalk allows visitors to get close to the geyser and is the first view you see as you approach.
We then proceeded through a gate to several hot spring pools, including the pool containing the runoff from the geyser. This created an opportunity for reflections, including the image at the top of this post.
My favorite shot of the afternoon was from this angle, zooming in to the top of the geyser to better see the colors, details, and spray of water.
Since I had to drive by Lake Tahoe on my way home anyway, I stopped at a popular spot on the east shore to photograph the Milky Way rising over the lake. These are the bonus stars for those of you that clicked on this post!
Well worth the trouble it took to get those great geyser shots!
Thank you for the gorgeous “bonus.”
This is so beautiful with these colors, yes we have such springs here in Uganda. its called Kitagata in western Uganda with very hot water spray. And there is another one near which is like a simple water hole but with boiling hot water where they sometimes even put eggs to boil in minutes. Thanks for such beautiful images, with broad descriptions attached to them.