Heading out to Grand I passed a small herd of louts heading up toward Castle. Interesting time of day to be out for a hike, considering it was mostly overcast, but it was warm. They passed by just after I'd settled into waiting for Rift to end.
That's also when Fan & Mortar decided to have another event. When the announcement of a second pause was made, I was at least fairly confident that I wouldn't have to go down that way, and I turned out to be right.
Like last night, Grand erupted when there was just enough light to see it.Since it was not as cold as normal, and dead calm, it was also possible to easily see the second burst. Although, this business of erupting not in daylight or darkness is going to quickly get tiresome.
So headed back in for more sleep, then played around in the cabin until ran out of things to do. By that time the Grand interval was approaching five hours, so decided to head out and kill time. So paid my respects to Splendid, took a look at Fan & Mortar just to say I'd been there, and then went over to Grand.
As I approached Sawmill, the eruption there stopped, so I watched the pool drain down, when a call that Grand was showing waves came over the radio. Surprised, I turned to see Grand boil up about 1/2 meter. A few seconds later Grand started, resulting in a 5h42m interval. As far as I can remember, if that's not the shortest interval in the last few decades, it's only a minute or two short.
But the weirdness wasn't over. It was a bit steamy, so I wasn't paying close attention to the activity when I suddenly realized that I hadn't seen Vent. I looked at the time, and we were approaching three minutes. Vent's vent was still empty. Getting better views showed no activity, not even any steaming. As the eruption progressed, kept looking for activity, and it wasn't until 8m12s before it suddenly started. Within seconds it seemed it reached full height.
And from then on, it was an ordinary short Grand eruption. Vent & Turban continued, and by twelve minutes later there wasn't any afterplay.
Next up was Beehive, but first we were treated to some exhibitionistic clown walking down the boardwalk from Castle toward Geyser Hill in dry-wall installers stilts. He even posed for his girlfriend by standing on one foot or bouncing in front of one of the slimy holes by Liberty.
The Indicator started within moment of my arrival at the benches south of Depression. The wind was fairly cooperative during the eruption until the last minute, at which point the raincoat and umbrella got used. At least it was just the edge of the spray, so I wasn't totally soaked.
The rest of the day was taken up with a fruitless wait down at Fan & Mortar for a weak early afternoon event. Since I had no idea what was going on at Grand, I got there early again. This time we got a Vent overflow delay (Type 3 ?) along with a West Triplet eruption. The long two burst eruption was followed by a long pause in Vent & Turban activity.
Leaving the area I thought that Sawmill Group looked good for some Penta activity, but didn't stick around. Turns out I was right, as Penta did erupt.
About an hour before time to head out to Grand, the call went out that there was another event starting at Fan & Mortar.Perfect timing, as I'd just gotten a nap but was way to early to head out.This way I could kill some time and maybe even see F&M. There were a few moments where they looked good, but on the whole was another one of those weak events that promised little and delivered.
Grand itself had another short interval for another one burst eruption shortly after midnight. I do expect to see my first four-Grand day in quite a while tomorrow.