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Observations for 27 July


This day started out with my going from geyser to geyser at dawn. First, I got out to Grand just in time to see a two burst eruption, the first with overcast, but that cleared just before the second burst started. During that eruption, Beehive's Indicator was announced,but I failed to hear it. I did hear a second announcement after it had been erupting for 10 minutes, but assumed it had just started. So while I thought I had time to maybe even get over the Geyser Hill, Beehive ended up starting as I was riding down past the trees below Castle. I did have time to go down to the overlook, and while walking out there was rewarded with a moonbow in the eruption spray, a sight I wouldn't have seen if I had been at the overlook at the start.

Just as I had arrived back at my bike an announcement of the start of an event at Fan & Mortar was made. I knew I would hate myself if I didn't go down and it did erupt, so north on the bike I went. It was a typical event, and when Fan's vents came back on, it quickly became apparent that the water levels weren't high enough. So back in for a nap I went.

There was a second event a few hours later, but it pretty much followed the same path as the earlier event. The only good thing that could be said about these two events is that they were far enough from the Grand eruptions that I didn't have to worry about interference. The midday Grand was a long interval, but did result in a nice two burst eruption.

The final event of the day started with a call of some sort of pause. The reporter wasn't quite sure if Gold had splashed, but in any event, the River vent was off and Main vent was splashing. Mortar's Bottom vent only splashed a bit during that pause, and then the vents reactivated. (Another opinion is that this was just a short, very poor cycle.) Only to have all the vents shut down again, and this time Bottom began an eruption to accompany vigorous Main vent activity.

This continued for quite a while, and when Fan's vents finally reactivated, they didn't take any time getting started, but almost immediately started erupting vigorously and continuously. This activity slowly, almost excruciatingly, built to the point where Fan's High vent was going to 15 feet, with the Gold vent not much smaller. The Angle vent seemed to be alternating between water and steam. Finally, we started to see steaming from Mortar's Frying Pan and the little vent on the back of Lower Mortar's "back armrest." The conditions were ideal, as most of the breeze was away from us, and the sun still high enough to provide perfect backlighting.

When the eruption finally began, it was one of the tallest and most powerful that I can remember. Most eruptions are dominated by one or the other geyser, but in this case both were huge. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had measured Upper Mortar's column at 70 feet. Fan's first surges went a good 10 yards beyond the walkway toward the Pit of Eternal Stench. The activity of the Mortar vents seemed to last a lot longer than it had in the previous eruption, and this time I remember actually seeing Fan's East vent during much of the first active phase.

The breeze did push some of the eruption into the walkway, and with the low sun, it was easy to get a huge, full circle rainbow. Outside the drizzle zone, a 240° double rainbow was obvious when standing north of Spiteful Geyser. Some of the activity of Fan in the subsequent phases was impressive too.

After than, it was time for another Grand eruption, and once again it was a long wait. There was overcast (some of it might have been smoke from Idaho fires), but it broke enough to illuminate the post-midnight two burst Grand eruption.