Geyser Notes

For the morning eruption, Grand reverted to type, giving us a long one burst eruption just before sunrise. During the eruption, Suzanne remarked that she thought she was also hearing Beehive. The interval would fit. So I went down toward the Sawmill Group and confirmed that Beehive was just finishing its eruption.

The weather was gray, but the forecast said it would be nice until noontime. So took advantage of the situation and headed out to see Imperial Geyser. Haven’t been there this century. One reason we left early was to avoid the parking fiasco at the trail head. Got there and found “Road Closed” signs across the entrance. Even though someone had move some of them, and there were cars back in the parking area proper, decided to go on to Ojo Caliente and bike in from there. This added about 10 minutes of driving, and 15 minutes of biking.

Trail out is easy, with only a couple of muddy spots. The bridge at the falls is out, and will be pleasantly surprised if the NPS replaces it any time soon. But there are several ways across the creek coming down from the plunge pool, so crossing wasn’t an issue.

The activity from Imperial is impressive. The side vent would have eruptions of varying length, then short pauses. When coming-out of the pause it seemed like some of the biggest burst occurred. I would guess a few were over 30 feet. The flow coming out, and the mud pot activity at the west end of the crater were as I remember them.

Didn’t cross the runoff to get to Spray. There seems to be one place a person could jump across, but didn’t want to risk it, and from there I couldn’t see any trail through the thick trees between that location and Spray itself. It seems that Imperial’s runoff where it joins Spray’s is much wider, as I remember crossing around there.

All this time we were the only people out in that area. On our way back, we finally met an huge tour group between Imperial and Fairy Falls. From the falls, there seemed at times to be a continuous stream of people walking towards the falls. By this time, also, the sky was starting to look nasty and about to rain. And few of these people were carrying anything, let alone rain gear.

At one point we saw another deer a few yards off the trail in the thick, young trees. Finally, as we approached the bike rack, the rain started. Despite all the people we’d passed, there was only one family group of bikes besides our own. The ride back was moderately unpleasant with a steady rain the whole three miles.

Also unpleasant was the parking situation at the other trail head. Not only were the signs gone and the lot full, but there were dozens of vehicles parked along the road. On the Till Geyser side many were parked perpendicular to the road, down into the ditch and runoff channel. An ugly sight, but one I’ve come to expect these days.

Got back to the Upper Basin to learn that Grand had erupted about 30 minutes earlier. If we hadn’t had to detour to Ojo Caliente, and take all the extra time that took, probably could have gotten back for the eruption. On the other hand, it was in the rain, and getting soaked for Imperial made a bit more sense.

In the evening, walked up on Grand. Was looking at Rift, which was just starting, when suddenly Grand started. Just the latest of a series of short intervals of the last few days.