Month: June 2007

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)
• 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.

Having a one Turban wait at 03:00 is nice. It's just enough time to settle in and appreciate the cold, but not long enough to get cold.

A 9m10s one burst eruption of Grand, on the other hand, isn't nice, especially on a full moon night when the slight breeze is blowing the steam to the north and West Triplet hasn't started erupting yet. The only excuse Big Sawmill has is that it took 1m25s from the start of Turban to get going. I really do miss the good ol' days when a first burst of that length was disappointing because it meant you probably were only got to get a second.

So of course the next eruption interval from Grand has to be a long. A long that doesn't fit any pattern, that erupts over half an hour after West Triplet ends, and that has no Rift. The pattern of Turban eruptions was chaotic up to the point where it had what I call a Type 3 delay (I think that's what I called it. Ishould've checked my notes back home better): On a fairly short interval, Turban has a strong, short eruption (around 3m30s) without any indication that Grand wants to erupt. That is followed by an even shorter interval (around 16m30s) and Grand usually erupts on one of the next two Turban intervals. This time it took four.

As if in compensation, the first burst was less than 8 minutes long. And as if to compensate for for that, the second burst lasted 2m20s, negating any chance of a third. Then, despite Vent and Turban quitting, the afterplay was fairly strong for a few minutes.

Giant is back to having hourly weak to medium strength hot periods, but as this is only at two days since the previous eruption, I'm not going to get excited until Monday morning.

Beehive erupted, not-unexpectedly to anyone who's paying attention, in the afternoon before the thunderclouds rolled in. I heard Beehive from within my Lodge Cabin for almost two minutes before someone gave out a radio call. And even then, they backdated the "ie" time by a minute.

The transition from early Spring to early Summer sure was quick. A suddenly noisy and gray sky is something I associate with July and August.

Another summer characteristic of the thunderstorms was their persistence. When it came time for Grand, they started up again. Out at Grand, the sky to the north was partly blue, and to the west it looked like the current shower would be the last. Except this continued for well over an hour. IT was as if the storm was just sitting directly overhead. That the lightening all seemed to be between one and two miles away seemed to confirm this. At least it was a short wait at Grand, and it even gave a bonus burst after a first lasting over ten minutes.

After Giant and three hours waiting in the wind for Grand, I decided a full night's sleep was in order. despite the full moon. A midnight run to the plumbing facilities confirmed that decision, as it had clouded up (or never really cleared.

I arrived at Grand at 06:25 to find Vent and Turban restarting along with an empty Grand crater. Back to pick up on sleep.

But before that I noticed that the Penta runoff channel was wet. Yesterday while waiting for Grand, we had a complete Tardy-only cycle, and were well into a second. I couldn't stick around, so my time estimate could be eight hours off.

Mid day proved to finally be a nice day where no jacket was needed, at least until the winds kicked up later in the day. But before that it was so calm that I could easily hear Oblong erupting while waiting at Grand.

The evening eruption took place minutes before sunset. It would have been even better if there'd been a second burst.

Other Geyser Times

01 Jun 2007

• Rift 18:44 d=40m00s

And nothing to do with geysers

A lone bicycle can trigger the outbound exit road's radar speed limit sign. I was doing 14mph.

Coming back from adding the postings on Giant, while I was biking between the Inn and the VC, I hear a call that Beehive's Indicator is erupting. The day just gets better. So I went down to the river overlook to enjoy the first Beehive eruption I've seen this trip.

The Grand eruption that afternoon was a bit of a disappointment. Not only did we get a Rift delay, but the one burst eruption lasted 12m25s, which while extremely long, I believe is not a record.

Other Geyser Times

31 May 2007

• Rift 13:54

And nothing to do with geysers

A few days ago the bison was below my cabin. Today, coming back, it was standing next to cabin #235, looking about as animated as the taxidermic specimen in the Upper Store.

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Some additions to the posting on Giant, also added inline to that posting:

Before the hot period, as I sat down for breakfast, I noticed no activity from Bijou. Now I wasn't there that long, and it may have already gone into the shutdown, but the lack of activity wasn't attracting any notice.

Well into the eruption one of the NPS Naturalists announced that there was a peregrine falcon down toward Morning Glory. Someone needs to take her aside and get her priorities straight. Or at least to recognize the priorities of many of those people milling about.