Observations for 30 July 2018
After last evening's hot period, I was wondering what I would find on the platform. As far as I could tell, nothing had happened overnight. The platform was still wet, but the pools were separate, especially around the Southwest Vents. That indicated that there hadn't even been a long Bijou pause/Bathtub overnight.
About an hour and a half after I arrived, there was a radio call of splashes in Fan's Main Vent. Shortly after, Bijou had a long 5m30s pause. So for a short period of time, there was radio traffic concerning both of the major geysers. For me, the end of the pause meant nothing would be happening there and I was free to go down to Fan & Mortar on the off chance that it would finally erupt.
It took its time, but it did. The activity in High and Gold would build and then die down, then repeat. It did this over a period of about ten minutes. Finally, one of the surges got so strong that East Vent had to erupt. That was quickly followed by starts in Upper and Lower Mortar and in Main Vent. Because of the wind direction, I stationed myself beside the trees to the north, where I could record the preliminary activity and the start.
The wind direction wasn't too bad, as there wasn't really any wind. The drifting steam did provide bright rainbows in the morning sun, and at one point I got to see a full circle, and recorded some of it.
Afterwards, it was back to the Bijou Cage. About an hour and a half after the previous activity there was another long Bijou Pause, this time with some Southwest Vents activity. This took place shortly after Grotto had started. The end of Grotto (via Rocket) came and went, and there was no hot period, not even a long pause.
It was an hour later that Bijou finally slowed down and paused, and show went into a hot period. This one was strange. It was stronger that the simple Feather only ones, but definitely weaker than what we'd like to see. Mastiff never did any surging, and there wasn't as much overflow as it usually puts out. Feather's Satellite was never seen, but Cave was active. Feather's duration seemed shorter too.
After that, it was time to see Grand, and it did reward us by quickly having a two burst eruption.
About 4 hours after the hot period, back in the cabin, was surprised by someone announcing water in Mastiff. That was it, but it still said that it was time to get back out. Once again, there was a long pause at about the time Grotto started. An hour later there was another one. Rocket came and went, and all Bijou was doing was having one minute or so long minors.
It was about an hour and a quarter after Grotto ended that a pause slowly built into a hot period. It took about three minutes before the Southwest Vents came on. This time there was strong activity. When full, Mastiff was pouring out water, and surging to 4 or 5 feet at times. With the restart, Giant showed several cone filling surges, but the water level between surges was never at the bottom of the rim as it was during the eruption the other day. And with that, it was time to head back in.