Going out for the nighttime Grand shows some more obvious differences between September and July. Seeing Orion rising was one. Hearing an elk bugle was another. While waiting for Grand the crescent mood first was visible through the trees behind Grand, then cast a strange pearly glow above the trees until it finally made its appearance.I'm used to the moon rising much farther to the south, from behind Rift or Spasmodic.
I arrived with West Triplet in eruption. It was a while before Rift joined in,so I must have just missed Triplet's start. That was not encouraging, as it was so early in the interval, and Grand could take several hours and still erupt well within the window.
The thin crescent was surprisingly bright, easily casting shadows. It's position behind Grand also meant that it was almost impossible to tell what was going on there. Usually I can use the contrast in the thicker portions of the steam over Turban and Grand to gauge what is going on, but the moon was illuminating the whole steamy area. So it was a pleasant surprise when a nondescript overflow was suddenly interrupted by a sizable burst from Grand. There wasn't any preliminary boop that I could hear.
The moon also provided a new and different view of the eruption. Or at least one I haven't seen in years. Grand was nicely backlit, and with there being no wind, it was possible to get into a position to actually use that lighting to enjoy the eruption.
It was cool whenI went out for the next eruption, but quickly warmed up. There was also a distinct layer of smokey haze throughout the area. This time Grand cooperated again, with an interval well under seven hours. The pool filled and began having waves at about the twenty minute mark, then fluctuated between looking great, and looking like it was dropping. We just missed having a delay by about 15 seconds.
The eruption itself was nice, without any preliminary hoops, but with Grand staring with a nice large explosion. At around the ten minute mark Grand had one of the longer false pauses I've seen. For about ten seconds there was nothing more than a big boil over the vent-- not stopping, but not rocketing either. Then one of the bursts broke free, and Grand continued on for several more minutes.
After Grand stopped, West Triplet started up. The Vent & Turban pause was notable because on several occasions it looked like the restart was about to happen, then the steam from those two vents stopped. But Grand continued to steam heavily all through those times. Finally, once the restart happened, Grand within a minute started having some nice sized afterplay.
It turned out waiting for the end of the West Triplet eruption was a good idea, as instead got to see the start of another Rift. An interval of less than eight hours.
Heard a radio call about Penta erupting. Got out there in time for the last minute or so of a 33 minute eruption. That was about the only noteworthy geyser activity (at least for me) until it was time again to go to Grand.
I didn't have high hopes for the next interval. With the second Rift eruption, I expect Grand to try to have a long interval, especially because it had had so many shorts lately. The first Turban interval I saw was 30 seconds of being a delay, and the next few intervals showed no sign of Grand wanting to have a short interval.
Then Turban tossed in one of its short duration eruptions, and Grand's pool did look like it could be having low pool waves. So now I was hoping for a long-short series, and for Grand to attempt to erupt on the second Turban following. Which is what it did. Grand looked good, with a high pool, but no waves, at the start of Turban. But over the course of the next 50 seconds, the pool rose and waves got bigger. FInally there was a series of at least 4 boils and hoops (one at least 2 meters high) before Grand finally did begin the first burst.
Of course during this time the sun managed to disappear behind a single small cloud. It did reappear for a while during the eruption, but was again hidden when the first burst ended at nine minutes. Or I should say the eruption ended, as despite the sort duration, Grand made no attempt to refill and give us a second burst.
Here are the bear footprints I mentioned yesterday. The bear passed by Economic, headed north toward the Purple Pools, it appears.