Geyser Notes

It was a day to see One Burst Grand eruptions.

The first was at dawn. Castle was in late steam as I tied down my bike,. The wait started out foggy and the walkway slippery, and for the next hour it got progressively foggier and slipperier. I sort of saw Daisy erupt by seeing a column of steam in that general direction, above the fog. But the little breeze there was pushed the steam away from my view, so I was actually able to see Vent overflow before Turban initiated the eruption.

During the wait, there wasn't much activity from Sput D, only one eruption (and overflow from West Triplet) about an hour before Grand erupted. During and after Grand there was the usual heavy West Triplet overflow and weak Sput D eruption. But the West Triplet also had areas of roiling, as if it was trying to start bursting. I also saw a couple of quick, 30cm high boils on Churn as I was walking by.

So it didn't surprise me to find that a few hours later Rift was erupting. This was the first eruption of Rift since we arrived five days ago. At the same time, Sput D was continuously spitting away. I stuck around to catch the first Grand overflow, at a little over four hours after the previous eruption. From there it was a quick visit to Geyser Hill to check on Aurum and Beehive. I waited maybe a couple of minutes for Aurum, and then since Beehive was being watched, I headed back to Grand.

Rift was still erupting, but Sput D was a lot quieter. As the Rift eruption progressed, it eventually stopped completely. About an hour later, I noticed splashes from Percolator, the first activity there I've seen in quite a while. Normally Percolator is full and overflowing when it erupts, but this time it was empty, and the jets had that thin appearance as if they were coming from down deep. Over at West Triplet, it seemed steamier too, as if it was having one of its deep drain eruptions. (The crowd was too thick to attempt taking a look.)

Meanwhile, Turban had consecutive Delay intervals, with the One Burst Grand eruption one interval after the second Delay. It was about ten minutes after Grand ended that Rift finally quit, too, for a duration of well over three hours.

Came out for the sunset Grand to find West Triplet still drained. Nothing happened down there the whole time I waited for Grand to erupt. This time, at least, Grand erupted on the second Delay. That mean the crowd was still able to see the eruption. Another Turban interval and it would have been dark. The start itself was explosive, maybe 5 meters high, with no preliminary boops or boiling or other warning.