Geyser Notes

After last night's long duration Fountain eruption, it had an even longer eruption before dawn-- about 39 minutes long. That meant that we would be going out to the Lower Basin around noon today, to see what would happen.

First we went out to Grand, where we got a pretty non-descript one burst eruption. The it was out to the Fountain Paint Pots.

Waited about an hour, with nothing much happening, and definitely nothing out of the ordinary. But when Fountain finally started, the boiling in Morning increased almost immediately, It took a little over a minute for that to go from heavy boiling to surging to erupting. This was my first Morning eruption in several years, and the conditions were excellent. There were frequent breaks in the clouds, allowing the sun through. The wind was such that the steam from Morning went behind (as seen from the overlook) Fountain, which in turn was easily visible.

The eruption looked as I remembered them-- the pool lifting up several times a minute with plenty of noise in each explosion. Several times there were vertical shots well over 40 meters. At around 14 minutes, the surging died down, and the total eruption duration was 14m38.

Fountain continued to erupt, but we didn't stick around as there were enough of the more dedicated people there who like seeing it.

After a meal back at the cabin, it was again out to Grand. This time we got a Vent overflow delay. Two Turban intervals later West Triplet started, then shortly after Turban preceeded Grand by about a second. It was partly sunny, but the wind was aimed right at the boardwalks. From my usual spot to beyond West Triplet , the umbrella was needed. But when Grand ended, the wind cooperated, pushing the steam away so that we could see Grand's crater, and that it still had water in it. It took overa minute, the crater filled and we finally got our second burst. The water column was completely visible, despite the earlier wind directions.

Again, we then headed to the Lower Basin. In years past, there were cases of a second Morning eruption about five or six hours after a dual eruption, and we wanted to be there for that.

That time period came and went, and we ended up at sunset waiting for Fountain. After a couple of Morning's Thief eruptions, it was near dark and we left the area. There were a considerable number of people there, and we figured there were more than enough get the Fountain info.