Geyser Notes

Fan & Mortar Geyser 2010 Jul 23

Mortar Geyser 2010 Jul 23

I had set the alarm for midnight for the middle of the night eruption. After getting three hours sleep, I got out to Castle by 00:15, at which point I realized that the steam from the Grand area didn't quite look right, and I knew that look. By the time I got to Churn, I was certain that what I was seeing was post-eruption Turban and Vent. That was the sound of Vent I was hearing. I got close enough to light up an empty crater and returned to my cabin to get some more sleep.

Not knowing the previous Grand time, i just assumed midnight and so decided I should get up at 06:00. So I was slowly getting everything organized, like putting away the clothes and jackets and blankets I had carried out six hours earlier, when the call came that F&M were having an "event." Which was excellent timing. I could go down there until the even ended and then go to Grand. The odds of two less than 7 hour intervals made that an easy decision.

So I got down for the later portion of an hour long eruption of Bottom Vent. Once Bottom finally turned off, and Fan's vent started back on, it became apparent that the water levels were high enough. And they stayed high even when the activity in the vents paused. From my vantage point north of Spiteful, eventually we got a steady but low eruption of both High and Gold. Nothing all that unusual, the kind of activity that could easy turn into steam.

At that point Upper Mortar suddenly started to splash heavily, and Mortar's frying pan began to steam heavily. Another surge from Mortar and it was erupting to at least 10 meters/30 feet. That activity seemed to last for 15 to 20 seconds (I didn't take times) and then quit. So at least we got to see an Upper Mortar minor. Then moments later water appeared jetting from Fan's Main and East vents and the eruption was on.

The conditions were perfect, as the photos show. It's perhaps the first eruption of F&M that I've seen that not only didn't you need an umbrella or raincoat, but except for the initial surges from Main vent, you couldn't get wet even if you wanted to. Neither did you have to constantly shift positions due to the shifting winds. The sun was high enough to give a full semi-circle rainbow, and what little breeze there might have been always blew the steam away from us.

After a few minutes the Mortar vents turned to steam, and the majority of the activity in Fan seemed to be concentrated in the Angle and Main vents. The East vent was quiet for the remained of the first burst. The second burst saw the re-emergence of the East Vent, which joined the Main vent in a couple of nice sized surges as big as any in the first burst.

Grand Geyser eruption 2010 July 23

The end of the second burst came only about 10 minutes into the eruption, which meant we had a chance for a third. The pool filled and sloshed, but eventually drained. If the vigorous Turban and Vent activity had continued, we would've had to watch for an afterburst, but that activity died out.

In the afternoon, once again I had Beehive erupt while I was at Grand. Getting to be a normal occurrence every afternoon. As the West Triplet window was closing, Grand had the first heavy, "delay overflow" since I've been here. Was typical of this sort of behavior: Grand's pool filled early, and looked good, with even some small waves, until about 20 minutes at which point it slowly began to drop. One difference was that the Turban duration was long, when often in these cases it's a short duration.

Perhaps because of this long duration, we didn't get the usual short Turban interval with no overflow, but something that looked more like the second interval after a delay. The period from the start of Turban to the start of Grand was a bit long, almost a minute. The pause between bursts was also a bit long, a minute, so not surprised that Turban and Vent quit without any attempt at a third burst.

Posted by HKoenig at 08:55 AM | Permalink

Nothing much to report. One of those dull days where Grand had a couple of one burst eruptions and Beehive erupted during one of those Grand waits. So spent a lot of the day on computer work and even catching up on some sleep.

Posted by HKoenig at 10:00 AM | Permalink

If Grand is going to have one burst eruptions, at least the middle of the night eruption showed how to do it. It lasted 12m09s, and other than one slight pause around the 10 minute mark, never had any of those slowdowns that make you think it might be stopping. This after it took Grand 1m44s from the start of Turban to finally get going.

The morning itself started out with a few clouds which about an hour later pretty much covered the entire sky. And it only got worse as the wait for Grand got longer. Fortunately, it never actually rained, although putting on the rain gear helped cut down the wind. Once again Rift had erupted earlier, and Grand showed no inclination to get into any sort of pattern which would give an indication of how long it would be. A West Triplet eruption even came and went.

The eruption, when it did come, was another nondescript one burst whose sole interesting feature was that it took a minute from the start of Turban (and Vent overflow) until Grand joined in.

The nasty sky persisted, but the sun finally started breaking through the clouds just before the afternoon eruption of Beehive. Since I've been here, that was my first good, close up view of Beehive. All of the other eruptions seem to always be during the wait for Grand or in the middle of the night.

The wildlife were out for the evening Grand. First, it was a coyote wandering southward on the rocks. Then a little later a deer appeared at the base of the slope to the north of Turban. It took its time grazing there, then moseyed up the hillside.

Grand itself once again delayed itself until two hours had elapsed since the last West Triplet. On the third Turban following what appeared to be a Turban eruption with Vent visible, there was never any overflow audible. Turban started out slow, but within 30 seconds had built to that heavy bursting stage that says that an eruption is imminent. But it took two and a half minutes before Grand finally started.

But what made the eruption special is that when Grand quit at 8m44s, that ended the eruption. It was possibly the shortest one burst eruption I've seen. (I'd have to check my records to be sure, and they aren't here.)

Posted by HKoenig at 08:40 AM | Permalink

I tried to get some sleep before going out to Grand at midnight, but my neighbors seemed to have brought with them boulders which they insisted on rolling around. Then, once it seemed that I was finally sleeping, they had some sort of medical emergency, which strangely enough, resulted in them being quieter than they had been before. But the rumbling of the ambulance engine wasn't going to let me get back to sleep, so I decided to head out to Grand a half hour before I'd intended.

Which wasn't so bad, as the moon was still up and low, which made for some nice lighting, with long shadows and even a moonbow in the steam over Crested Pool. Sawmill's eruption was nicely backlit, too. Grand itself behaved the same way the night before, erupting on the first Turban eruption after the moon had set. Fortunately, the soon the moon will be up the entire night, and I'll finally be able to see the eruption instead of just hearing it.

In the morning, there was a slight amount of frost on the boardwalks still in the shadows. Grand continued the shorter intervals, and again I only waited for one Turban interval. Unlike yesterday morning, there was a slight breeze which made the activity visible, even without backlighting. It was quite nice seeing several successive spikes appear out of the steam cloud of the second burst.

The hopes of a four Grand day ended with the 9h43m interval leading up to the day's third eruption. Rift had erupted early in the afternoon, but Grand just got into the mode where each interval was a little shorter, and you just have to wait until you get a really short one (less than 17 minutes) before you even have a chance of an eruption.

But the eruption itself was a bit different. Only one burst, but Grand did refill and at least look like it was making an attempt at a second burst. Then, when the vent drained, Turban and Vent acted like they were going to quit. But for about a minute there were a series of small blips not much bigger than the ones you get at the end of a solo Turban eruption. Then quite suddenly Turban was fill and splashing as vigorously as it can. I hoped this might signal an afterburst, but it was nearly nine minutes before Grand started splashing.

Posted by HKoenig at 07:23 AM | Permalink

So this morning started with the news that no one went out to Fan & Mortar until it had been daylight for several hours. And then proceeded to walk up on the eruption. That took care of my intention to spend any free time down there today.

But I still figured that I would be able to eat breakfast at Grand. I had just dropped the pack after having dried off a section of bench, and was facing away when I hear Turban start. Followed immediately by the sound of Grand starting. It was calm, so it was a steam two burst eruption. The steam was so thick that the sun wasn't visible when trying for a backlit view.

The afternoon Grand eruption was nothing unusual and nothing special. A dull, typical one burst eruption.

Also today Castle had two minors which resulted in an interval between major eruptions that was almost exactly what the interval would have been if the first minor eruption had been a major eruption.

Posted by HKoenig at 08:38 AM | Permalink

I decided I'd rather try for a good night's sleep than try to get up for Grand. But I still woke up around 04:00, which would've been fairly early in the window. I still decided I'd rather try to snooze some more, so I was able to confirm what I'd half-expected: I should've gone out because I'd have seen the 05:16 eruption.

With Beehive erupting shortly thereafter, there wasn't much going on. So I spent the morning down basin just seeing things. Caught a couple of Daisy eruptions, and even a Riverside.

It's been awhile since I paid attention to Link minors, but the one I saw today struck me as having larger boils than I remember. It built up to one at least a meter tall and then the boiling (but not the overflow) seemed to completely stop. The overflow continued, but for the next ten minutes I didn't seen anything like that big boil.

Giant may have shown slight signs of progress back in May, but today it looked about as bad as I remember it back in the 1980s. All that was missing is the grass growing on the platform.

I also noticed that Daisy's runoff channels seems to have shifted. No longer does it appear water flows from an eruption into the pools around Splendid. The runoff to the southwest is much wider, and has invaded an area of trees next to the trail. One advantage to not having Daisy runoff at Splendid is that should Splendid ever start showing signs of life, that will be reflected in large pools around it and even the rejuvenation of its runoff channels.

Made the mistake of going out to Grand too soon. Hearing a report of West Triplet at about the 5.5 hour mark in Grand's interval, I thought that it might have a chance to go on the next West Triplet eruption and have a short interval. As it turned out, it did go on the next West Triplet opportunity, except that was a three hour West Triplet interval, and Rift had already started.

The eruption itself was a nice change from the usual one burst. After the end of the second burst, several times Turban looked like it had quit, only to become active again. Then the activity really picked up, and that meant that an afterburst needed to be considered. As it was, there hadn't been any play by 10 minutes. Didn't want to stay any longer because of incoming black clouds.

Beehive's Indicator started during Grand, and today we had a Beehive interval shorter than the coincident Grand interval. Which gives some idea of the frequency (or lack thereof) of the two geysers.

The middle of the night Grand was a bit hard to see, since the moon had just disappeared behind the ridge since the previous Turban start. But it was a relatively short interval (8h30m) and I did get to see the Castle minor eruption and an Oblong while waiting.

Posted by HKoenig at 05:55 AM | Permalink

Since I was coming in the South Entrance anyhow, and I had already been told the last Grand and Beehive times I decided that I should at least stop by and see if King Geyser was still active and at least make an attempt to see it. That was my first visit to West Thumb in years, and during the 45 minutes I was there all I saw was periodic boiling. Maybe I'll stop again on the way out.

Tilt Geyser 2010 Jul 17

Tilt Geyser 2010 Jul 17

At Grand, got a Vent overflow delay, with Grand erupting 4 Turban intervals later. The eruption itself came near the end of the West Triplet window, about two hours after the start of West Triplet. The eruption itself was an ordinary short one burst. (You can tell it was short because Vent and Turban didn't pause.)

Posted by HKoenig at 06:26 AM | Permalink