Geyser Notes

Another wet night. I could have gone out to Grand in the night. I set the alarm to get up for it, but I looked at the weather map and decided not to go. Waiting out in the rain in the dark is not any fun. I can’t see and I can’t really hear. Taking notes without getting the notebook soaked is a chore. Once you settle into a location and position, you don’t want to move for any reason, as that will get you wet. So you end up cold and damp and tired.

So woke up to another gray wet day. Was hoping that unlike the other day, the NPS might provide the overnight Grand time, but they didn’t. So figured the fourteen hour mark was good enough. Got out to Grand and the area was quiet, as if Rift had gone a few hours ago and put all the rest of the spurs to sleep. The Grand prediction board was completely erased, with nothing written on it. I was not surprised that the NPS would live down to my expectations.

The Turban intervals were all long, well into the twenties, with the first one being over 24 minutes. The durations were also long, and got shorter as the wait length increased. The same thing happened with the Turban eruption durations. They started out well over six minutes, while the one that preceded the Grand eruption was less than four. I suspect we got out to Grand not long after the first overflow, which would make the previous Grand interval something at or over nine hours long. Really glad I didn’t go out at night if that’s true.

We ended up with a seventeen hour double interval, which fits. After the previous short Turban eruption, we got a vigorous Turban start. It was hard to tell through the steam and fog from the occasional showers, but Grand’s pool appeared to stay full with waves. It was nearly two minutes before Grand finally started.

Having the first burst end at 7m49s was a pleasant surprise. This was so short that we were either assured to have another burst, or we’d just witnessed one of the shortest, if not the shortest, Grand eruptions ever. Grand gave us that second burst, and despite the weather, we could see the jets nicely. The second burst was short, less than half a minute, which was another relief, as too often it seems that when there’s a short first burst, the second burst goes on too long. But as far as I could tell, Grand didn’t even attempt to fill for a third. We ended up with a total length of 9m02s.

Walking back from Grand was when Castle started to erupt after having a minor earlier Since by then the rain had stopped, we waited around for the steam phase, or the next minor eruption. The steam was as noisy as always.

After lunch back in the cabin area, the rain had stopped so made a visit to Geyser Hill. Was my first time over by Giantess, where I was surprised to see that Infant was well above its shelf. We’d intended to stick around by Beehive, but by then the rain had returned, and getting wet was a low priority. So we weren’t back in the cabins long before the call of water in the Indicator was heard. The eruption was white on bright gray background, but the jet out of the cone was as impressive as always.

After a wet afternoon, an unwelcome surprise was Grand erupting as we were just leaving the Lodge area. With the rain, didn’t want to get out there any earlier than necessary, and 5h59m seemed way too early to start getting wet. But did get as far as Castle during the eruption, where we could see that it didn’t have a second burst.