Today started out as a continuation of yesterday. I decided to forego the middle of the night Grand eruption and instead catch up on sleep, Besides the night was supposed to be cloudy and I didn't relish a three hour wait in the dark. As it turned out, I wouldn't have had much wait at all.
Woke up around 06:00 and I was just starting to post the photos and report on yesterday when the call for an event at Fan & Mortar came in around 06:30.
So I finished up and header over to the store parking lot to continue on down basin on the bike.
I arrived to nice, consistent activity by the High and Gold Vents. Within a few minutes the Angle vent joined in, and unlike yesterday's event, the activity did not show any sign of weakening. Instead, it steadily increased until around 07:10, by which time we had the High vent erupting to about 4 meters, continuously. By the only question was how would the eruption start.
Since my phone has video capability, I shot some shaky footage of the start. It began with extended play by Upper Mortar for about 10 seconds. Just as it looked like it might die down, Lower Mortar showed water, and at almost the same time water gushed out of Fan's Main and East vents.
Fan & Mortar eruption, 2011 July 11
The conditions were ideal. Because of the overcast, the night wasn't as cold as it could have been, and the sun had been up long enough to remove any other chill, and to provide excellent lighting. There was absolutely no wind, and surprisingly, no mosquitoes. During the eruption I never needed to use my umbrella or raingear, and with the steam cloud going straight up, all of the rainbows were easily visible.
Following that, decided time to head out to Grand, just in case it pulled a short interval. A guess as to the eruption time based on overflow pretty much matched the time from the monitor. Except it turned out to be a long wait. One with Rift ending and Grand still not showing any signs of trying to erupt. When Grand did erupt, we got an eruption like yesterday, one nearly 12 minutes long.
During the wait we did see an eruption of Churn. Not sure why, as Sawmill was active. Bulger was having minor eruptions, but no major eruptions, and the people who watched it for all that time said that the hole never showed any signs of activity.
So after that, it was time to head in. Knowing that there wasn't much going on until evening (except for the possibility of Beehive), I took the opportunity to perform other chores, like take a nap.
To get to the Beehive eruption, one had to negotiate another bison gauntlet. This time the three of them were bedding down over by Little Squirt and Silver and Bronze, but just close enough to make me hesitate before quickly passing by. The Beehive eruption itself was well behaved for the first half, until the wind shifted. I tried to hunker down next to the railing under my umbrella, but after a bit I gave up and moved on. Rather than run the bison gauntlet a second time, I took the opportunity to walk around Geyser Hll.
The sky had clouded up by the to head out to the evening Grand. It was extremely windy, but I did get out there before the first shower started. Nothing too much, about ten minutes long with a little hail mixed in.
Grand erupted about 15 seconds before the delay would have officially started.As it was, it was just a short one burst, and I was able to head in while it was still a little light, and before the really heavy rain (and thunder and lightning) started.
The rock wall at Aurum may be intended to hide the monitor's wire, but it seems to instead call even more attention to itself. Surely a better job could be done here, and in several other places where the monitors and their wires are obvious. Of like at West Triplet, exposed.