Yesterday evening Mary Beth Schwarz warned me that she'd seen the old bull bison who hangs around the area in the open space between the Lower Ham's Store and the Inn.
As I'm headed out for the middle of the night Grand, I stop at the top of the slope headed down to the Store to pull up the hood on my jacket. Off to the right, I hear some crunching sounds. The MagLite reveals that it's the bison, slowly making its way toward the Inn. Fortunately, it paused far enough from the trail that I could scoot on past.
Later that morning, the bison was busy again. This time marking his territory, leaving two large gooey hazards on the bike trail cutoff in front of the lift station and gas station. I saw it put down the second hazard, and it was almost like it was positioning itself before release.And since it's the time of year where there's not much rain, the bison's handiwork could be there for weeks.
Because of the quick trip, I did something I normally wouldn't do. When a call went out that Fan & Mortar had had the activity which is indicative of a possible eruption (River vent pause, Main vent splashing), I left Grand. Normally I'd just hope for the best, that Grand would cooperate and erupt soon, or that Fan & Mortar wouldn't erupt at all. If they did, then I'd just rationalize that I would have plenty more opportunities.The worst case is to leave, and end up seeing neither.
Which is exactly what happened. I got down to F&M just in time for things to die down. I waited to return just long enough that when Mary Beth made the call that the eruption was imminent, I was only as far as Grotto when it started. I could have lived with having gotten as far as the bend of the River. It's a nice view, and I watched the eruption from there. So when it quit after only about 9 minutes, I thought it would also be a great place to see a second burst. Which never came.
The rest of the day was spent watching F&M play around and do nothing. They didn't even try to look like they were going to erupt until about 8 hours after the first false alarm. Then Grand had another short eruption, but this time at least it was a two burst one.
The day did end nicely, however. While we were waiting for the evening Grand, it was obvious that the Sawmill Group was in Tardy mode. Which means that the next cycle has a good chance of there being a Penta eruption. I waited after Grand to see what would happen, telling myself that I could leave after the sun set. I didn't want to get sucked into waiting until after dark for nothing to happen. I was just about to follow through with my promise to myself, as things didn't look that great. Penta had overflowed a bit, but not the flood I remember seeing before a start. Sawmill had also started to overflow, and that's a sign I could do without. But then the left front vent bubbled, and I got sucked in. That's too good a sign, even with less than ideal overflow. There was one more, stronger series of bubbling, along with some bubbling from the right vent.Then the third time, the bubbling continued, with both vents getting stronger until the main vent finally joined in.