Geyser Notes

As expected, at dawn the fog was thick. Geyser Hill was a mass with a couple of larger plumes of unknown origin rising from it, origins unknown. At Grand the whole north end of the basin was a solid mass as it began to lighten.

I also arrived to find Rift well into an eruption. Not surprising, and after a day of 6-1/2 hours intervals, I figured it was time for a long. So was caught a bit by surprise when Grand initiated another short, one-burst eruption just short of seven hours. The idea of going out to Grand without the expectation of at least a two to four hour wait just doesn't seem right.

So that afternoon, Grand decided to make up for that. It ignored a West Triplet eruption, which in years past would have been a good time for an eruption. It had multiple "Type 2" Turban delays, where there isn't a long Turban interval, but there are early waves on a flooding Grand pool. The second time it did that, the poll was full and pouring water at the 13 minute mark. But by 17, the attempt was obviously over, and the pool so drained that some of the ridges were dry between them.

The eruption, at least wasn't the usual short one burst, but we actually got a second burst, although it lasted for a bit over two minutes.

There were also a couple of weak Fan & Mortar events, which of course got people all excited, despite it being nearly a day short of the shortest known interval this season. I did bike as far as Castle for the evening one, on the off chance that a four day interval was about to happen.

The long Grand interval had the unfortunate side effect of pushing the next eruption into the dark. But Grand also reverted back to the pattern of yesterday's activity, so it had another 6-1/2 hour interval. It was still visible at the start, enough light to see the base surge and the start of Vent, thanks to it also being dead calm. (Dead calm also meaning that the mosquitoes were out.) I did get to see some moron dipping his feet into the runoff channel to impress his idiot friends, but otherwise there wasn't anything unusual about seeing another one burst eruption.

But what was a little pathetic was that despite the huge herd of geyser groupies in, none of them bothered to be there. This despite there having been a Beehive eruption only 30 minute before. I think the reason is that most of those people don't like Grand. They only go out there because they like socializing at Grand, and when no one else is around (but me) the opportunities for socializing are minimal.