Day: May 31, 2010

This morning Fan & Mortar could have erupted in daylight with no one around. I'd been up since 05:30, and not hearing anything from that part of the basin, decided I had to know what was going on. I got down there about 06:45 and found the area deserted. Fortunately the marker was still in place and the walkways showed no sign of wash. But still, at over 5 days, with a large crowd of geyser groupies in the area and even an expert or too in attendance, you'd think that one of those folks would have comet at dawn.

The weather was no excuse. There'd been no rain overnight, and it was pretty calm and relatively cloud free (at least compared to this past week). As it was, everyone got lucky as F&M appeared to be in a garbage mode, a mode that persisted all morning.

Tilt Geyser blowout

I didn't check Tilt on the way to Grand as I usually do, so it wasn't until walking back that I noticed that it had cleared out the red scum and muck which had been choking the vent. I think I checked it yesterday, so that would put the eruption, such as it was, overnight. While standing there and taking photos, the pool pulsated for a minute or so, then dropped well below the rim.

With the relatively nice day, and since I was already down at that end of the basin, I also decided to check out the Giant platform. Wasn't quite as dead as I'd expected. At first I thought the water standing on the platform indicated something might have happened, but later evaluation by myself and some others was that Mastiff and Giant are just really splashing hard, enough to keep the puddles in front of them wet and full. It probably means that Giant just might erupt in September.

Overnight Grand had a short interval, and followed that up with one that was just within my window. So glad I'm not going to be here anymore to fight with it. The morning eruption was probably under the best conditions I've seen this trip, with sunlight most of the time, and even a second burst. It started only about 40 minutes after the end of Rift's eruption, so it might even be said that it appeared in the proper West Triplet window.

By having the morning eruption go on a short interval also meant that there was now a chance for one more daylight eruption, at sunset.

Once again, Beehive erupted at almost the same time as Grand, this time starting during the second burst. That also meant that once again, there were several hours of nothing to do. Fan & Mortar did fill that gap, either.

The weather stayed fairly nice until the time for Grand approached. By the time I got out there, it was already sprinkling, and I spent the wait under an umbrella. Once again, Grand erupted about 2.5 hours after West Triplet.This was a little long, as indicated by West Triplet starting during the first burst.

At that point I made a mistake. The first call of a possible event at Fan & Mortar was made. I considered just heading in and getting ready to go home, but the idea of missing an eruption down there just didn't appeal. Even though I know that those things never give me a break or cooperate. This was no exception. Spent another hour and a half in the rain. The only thing of interest is that once Fan's vents started to die down, Upper Mortar started having splashes, the kind that can possibly build into an Upper Mortar initiated eruption. But after a couple of good meter high plumes, it died down and it was time to bike in in the dark.

Started out the day by seeing a coyote nosing around my cabin. Then out at Grand saw the first elk of the season, when a couple of them wandered through over by Economic.

The morning itself was dry, but overcast and windy, making it much more miserable than it needed to be. I decided that I didn't need to be out until 8 hours, and arrived just at the end of a West Triplet eruption, so everything worked out. Grand did wait almost 2.5 hours, which makes for a bigger window than I'd like, but still one about an hour wide.

Fan & Mortar didn't erupt overnight, so they could have been the timewaster of the day. Turns out they cooperated in their not erupting. Made two round trips down there, the first from the cabins in the morning after Grand, the second, from Grand right after the eruption. In both cases arrived for Bottom Vent activity which led to normal looking activity from the Fan vents. So the middle of the day was free to do nothing much, but at least not spent out in the showshowers and wind.

We finally got a Beehive eruption. There was a rumor that it erupted last night at or before midnight, so it appears that the reason it was missed yesterday was because it had also erupted shortly before dawn.

That evening Grand I mentioned was post-Rift, which is a case where the West Triplet window doesn't really apply, at least for now. In the past there used to be a period post-Rift where Grand wouldn't normally erupt, and with some observations, it might be determined that that's still the case.

On my back from my morning attempt to make yesterday's posting, I saw something new: someone who'd driven onto the pedestrian walkway/emergency road to get to the OF entrance road. Another reason I take the trolley to work instead of playing in traffic twice a day.