Observations for 29 July 2014
Awoke to gray sky and wet ground. But it was still warm, and according to the weather radar, the rain should be decreasing. So headed out to Grand.
Out at Grand I checked the weather radar again. In the last twenty minutes, a new cell of rain showers had developed and was headed my way. As rainstorms in the geyser basins go, it wasn’t much, but did require deployment of rain gear and umbrella.
The first Turban eruption after I arrived was another one of those short but vigorous types. After about 30 seconds, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Grand, hidden somewhere in all the steam, had started. Instead, this eruption heralded the eruption of Grand two Turban intervals later.
Without much wind, Grand was shrouded in its own steam, although the occasional spike would climb about the mass of steam. This mass didn’t dissipated quickly, so the second burst out of it. The second burst was long, but not enough to be considered official.
Coming back from Grand, we heard the call for Beehive’s Indicator. Despite the gray skies, it was as nice eruption seen from Geyser Hill. In part that was because the walkways were mostly empty, and I was able to move around a bit. The wind also never shifted the downfall onto the walkway.
After breakfast, the rains had stopped, and it was turning into just a cool gray morning. I haven’t been to Artemisia and wait for an eruption in years. But with no one knowing what it was up to, or when it erupted last,it seems like a good place to waste some time. I figured there were two possibilities— I’d see an eruption, or after a couple of hours, head back. I didn’t consider the possibility that when I got past the trees at Grotto I’d see a huge steam cloud at Artemisia.
Since we were almost there, we went on to Artemisia to at least see the eruption and its end.
For both the mid day, and the early evening Grand eruptions, there was no wait at all. And we even got two bursts with the first eruption. But that also left a lot of free time, which ended up being used with non-geyser activities like playing games.
One item of interest is that Grand has been getting benches wet with daytime eruptions, something I haven’t seen in a while. It doesn’t take much of a wind shift to get the benches down by Rift and West Triplet wet, but today the wind actually caused me to have to use my umbrella in my usual spot. There’ve also been some nice base surges rolling off the starting water column when the wind is right, too.
Updated: 2014 July 31 07:40