Periodic Spring Trail

Even though it's not the right time of year to look at it, we decided to visit Periodic Spring.  Periodic Spring is a rare geological feature where a natural spring flows discontinuously, ceasing entirely for a few minutes at regular intervals, behavior thought to be caused by underground siphon activity. Only a very small number of such springs are known in the world, other locations being Gihon Spring in Jerusalem, Dhor Barahi near Pohara in Nepal, Gyechon in South Korea, Fontaine de Fontestorbes in France and Igla in Slovenia.  Afton's periodic spring is thought to be the largest of them all.  Periodic Spring is situated near the edge of the mountains that rise up just east of Afton.  To get to it we first drove four miles on a gravel road which ran close to the creek all the way.

Sometime the road was good...

But a lot of the time it wasn't.

There was still a lot of snow left to melt.

Snowmelt ran down the sides of the mountains in a lot of places.

Finally we made it to the trailhead..

Still accompanied by the creek.

The creek was noisy here with the sound of the rushing water.   Here another creeklet fed the flow.  One of the creeklets that ran into the creek looked like chocolate milk. 

This is an easy trail will little elevation gain and beautiful scenery.

Just another view of the creek.

I took this photo before I knew it was the canyon from which the Periodic Spring flowed.

We walked up until the snow blocked the path.

Nolan just had to have some fun with the snow.

A sign explaining why the spring flow fluctuates.  The flow doesn't fluctuate in early spring because of all the snowmelt.

This is a zoomed in view of the outlet from which the spring flows.

Looking down from the spring, you can see the flow.

Just lifting our heads to take in the view.

View as we headed back down the creek. 

View from along the road.

The creek is dammed to create this small pool.  I assume it is to regulate the flow because there are electric generating stations downstream.
 

Here's the other side of the dam.

A large blue tube ran from the bottom of the pond. 

Notice how the stream is much smaller just downstream from the dam. 

The tube ran alongside the creek to the electric generating station downstream.

Just another look at the wonderful road.

One of three electric generating stations downstream.  You can see the blue tube entering from upstream.