Posted on

Observations for 19 and 20 July


Finally saw the reactivated sputs by Grand. These are in the exact same place as the sputs of the early 1980s, but their behavior has changed.

Back then they were pretty much active all the time up to a Rift eruption,which would kill them. Sort of like the way Percolator behaves even today. But now they only erupt for a few minutes. The activity, especially from the leftmost one,which probably is at the location of the original Sputnik, was going at least two or three feet high at one point. Also of interest is that the water starts out a muddy gray, only to turn clear as the eruption progressed. A good sign that they are still cleaning a decade or so's accumulation of debris out of their vents. And based on this behavior, I'm even more convinced that this is North Triplet we're seeing.

I also learned that an umbrella is no protection from Beehive when there's a still breeze right at you. I had a circular dry spot on my front, but my pack and legs were soaked. Fortunately, the day was warm and sunny, so it only took a few hours to dry out completely.

On Saturday Castle also pulled one of its pause eruptions. It really didn't look like it wanted to start, and after about 4-1/2 minutes, it finally quit. After determining that it was definitely quiet, I waited for the mass of people to leave and then followed them. But before that, I remarked to several people that it was known to restart at any time. I got partway down the hill when I heard it erupting, again. So after about a seven minute pause, it restarted and continued with the major eruption. And it was no surprise to learn that it did have the minor eruption during the night.

Otherwise it was a pretty dull weekend, but the point was to field test my new iPhone geyser-log program. In that regard, I was successful, as I got over four pages of notes on bugs, enhancements and things that just weren't going to work the way I had expected. Now to spend the next few weeks fixing all of them.