Unlike yesterday, today things beyond the dull happened.
I had set the alarm for midnight for the middle of the night eruption. After getting three hours sleep, I got out to Castle by 00:15, at which point I realized that the steam from the Grand area didn't quite look right, and I knew that look. By the time I got to Churn, I was certain that what I was seeing was post-eruption Turban and Vent. That was the sound of Vent I was hearing. I got close enough to light up an empty crater and returned to my cabin to get some more sleep.
Not knowing the previous Grand time, i just assumed midnight and so decided I should get up at 06:00. So I was slowly getting everything organized, like putting away the clothes and jackets and blankets I had carried out six hours earlier, when the call came that F&M were having an "event." Which was excellent timing. I could go down there until the even ended and then go to Grand. The odds of two less than 7 hour intervals made that an easy decision.
So I got down for the later portion of an hour long eruption of Bottom Vent. Once Bottom finally turned off, and Fan's vent started back on, it became apparent that the water levels were high enough. And they stayed high even when the activity in the vents paused. From my vantage point north of Spiteful, eventually we got a steady but low eruption of both High and Gold. Nothing all that unusual, the kind of activity that could easy turn into steam.
At that point Upper Mortar suddenly started to splash heavily, and Mortar's frying pan began to steam heavily. Another surge from Mortar and it was erupting to at least 10 meters/30 feet. That activity seemed to last for 15 to 20 seconds (I didn't take times) and then quit. So at least we got to see an Upper Mortar minor. Then moments later water appeared jetting from Fan's Main and East vents and the eruption was on.
The conditions were perfect, as the photos show. It's perhaps the first eruption of F&M that I've seen that not only didn't you need an umbrella or raincoat, but except for the initial surges from Main vent, you couldn't get wet even if you wanted to. Neither did you have to constantly shift positions due to the shifting winds. The sun was high enough to give a full semi-circle rainbow, and what little breeze there might have been always blew the steam away from us.
After a few minutes the Mortar vents turned to steam, and the majority of the activity in Fan seemed to be concentrated in the Angle and Main vents. The East vent was quiet for the remained of the first burst. The second burst saw the re-emergence of the East Vent, which joined the Main vent in a couple of nice sized surges as big as any in the first burst.
Grand Geyser eruption 2010 July 23
So following that, it was time to head to Grand, which was nice enough to have not yet erupted. Only waited for two Turban eruptions when we got Turban start and Vent overflow on a short Turban interval. Turban sounded nice at first, then seemed to quiet down, so we prepared ourselves for some sort of delay. But then Turban's activity picked back up, and Grand's pool began to rise. As with F&M, the lighting and breeze for this was perfect, making it easy to watch what was happening. It took two minutes before Grand finally joined in.
The end of the second burst came only about 10 minutes into the eruption, which meant we had a chance for a third. The pool filled and sloshed, but eventually drained. If the vigorous Turban and Vent activity had continued, we would've had to watch for an afterburst, but that activity died out.
In the afternoon, once again I had Beehive erupt while I was at Grand. Getting to be a normal occurrence every afternoon. As the West Triplet window was closing, Grand had the first heavy, "delay overflow" since I've been here. Was typical of this sort of behavior: Grand's pool filled early, and looked good, with even some small waves, until about 20 minutes at which point it slowly began to drop. One difference was that the Turban duration was long, when often in these cases it's a short duration.
Perhaps because of this long duration, we didn't get the usual short Turban interval with no overflow, but something that looked more like the second interval after a delay. The period from the start of Turban to the start of Grand was a bit long, almost a minute. The pause between bursts was also a bit long, a minute, so not surprised that Turban and Vent quit without any attempt at a third burst.