The middle of the night Grand eruption ended up being the early morning eruption, thanks to Rift and West Triplet. As expected, all the clouds were gone by midnight, and with the almost full moon, there was no excuse to not go out. The wait and eruption were saved from becoming a total fiasco by the eruption being extremely unusual. The time between the start of Turban and the start of Grand was 2m56s. This is longest such interval that I've witnessed since the early 1980s. Turban started out sounding vigorous, and stayed that way the whole time. Due to the fog and low light, it wasn't possible to see either Vent or Grand's pool. But despite poor seeing, it seemed like the pool's fog was not thinning as usual.
With such a delayed start, it's not surprising that Vent started only 47s later. It appears that although Vent's start is keyed off the initiating geyser, it'll take an even greater interval to get a "Vent before Grand" start. In 1983, Mary Ann Moss witnessed one such, but Grand took over 7 minutes to start. In the past I've noticed that these extreme starts result in shorter Grand eruptions (total water and duration), but that may be the case here as a 10m10s single burst resulted in Vent and Turban quitting.
The mid-day Grand gave us the second unusual eruption in a row. First, it was only the second heavy overflow type delay that I've seen this trip. Grand finally boiled up a meter or so, then went calm again. It looked like we might actually get a "boop", which I haven't see since the mid-90s. But about 10 seconds later Grand started for real.
Where this morning's eruption featured a long time between the start of Turban and the start of Grand, this featured the reverse. It took Turban a minute to start, no where near a record, but Vent's vent didn't overflow until 17 seconds after that. Vent itself didn't start erupting until 3m12s, which is the opposite extreme from this morning.
Stopped by the Giant group in preparation for the start of a new Giant Deathwatch, and caught a weak bathtub (water visible only if you looked for it) and then a Grotto start. It took so long from the start of Grotto Fountain that I thought this might e one of those Grotto Ftn. only eruptions. And when Grotto did start, it seemed weak.
The afternoon/evening/twilight Grand eruption was notable only for the lack of any reason there was almost a nine hour interval, and two deer that wandered through. Earlier Grotto started what appears to be a maratthon, at least it was still going 3-1/2 hours later.
It was pointed out to me that some information in my description of the 31 May eruption of Giant was in error. It's quite normal, post-marathon, for Bijou to be dead even hours later, and only reactivate after the first hot period. And even then, it may not be continuous.
Other Geyser Times
- Rift 02:20 d=37m53s, 12:17
- Grotto Fountain 13:10ie d>21m26s, 17:39
- Grotto 13:33, 17:50 (still ie 21:20)
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Giant Hot Periods (not complete)
- 10:19 d=6m16s
- 15:49
- 17:21, d=2m02s
- 18:45, d≈5m30s
And nothing to do with geysers
Behind the Inn, parked in a "handicapped only" space was a van with several bikes on the back and a kayak on top.