After seeing Grand illuminated, went out in the dark with the hope that the interval would be short and we’d be able to illuminate Grand with one torchlight. But after a couple of Turban eruptions, it became obvious that it was too light for the torchlight to matter. Then it became bright enough to see, but the steam from the runoff started to obscure vision. When arrived at the benches, they were still wet from condensation, but as the day brightened, the walkways and benches were covered in enough frost to make the walks slippery. Finally after a 9-1/2 hour interval (and a three hour wait), Grand erupted as the sun was above the trees behind it.
That the eruption was so late actually made for a nicer eruption. It was dead calm, and the sun was high enough that the entire water column was backlighted. The duration was also 11-1/2 minutes, so if we were going to have to see a one burst eruption, at least it lasted long enough to justify not having a subsequent burst.
For the first three minutes of the Beehive eruption, the breeze was blowing parallel to the walkway, so no one got wet. Then the breeze turned into the wind and it started to shift. First the folks by Plume got soaked. The shift continued, and moments later the downpour was coming directly at the walkway, 90 degrees from its previous direction. Fortunately, that didn’t last long. Because most of the eruption was without wind, the column was nice and tall against the clear, deep blue sky and the falling water to the left of the cone impressive by its closeness to both the walkway and the cone.
Both Rift and West Triplet were in eruption when I arrived for the afternoon Grand wait. West Triplet ended shortly after, and Rift about ten minutes later.
Like yesterday, the Grand wait in the early afternoon was interrupted by another event down at Fan & Mortar. Unlike yesterday, that event wasn’t very good. Just at the time the announcement was heard, Turban had one of its shorter eruptions, indicating Grand might be trying to erupt in about 40 minutes. One thing to consider in the future is that those who left Grand were able to get back to it for the eruption, 37 minutes later.
The plans to illuminate the next eruption didn’t happen. Suzanne and I were walking up to Castle when we saw the start of the eruption. The interval was 5h52m. Other gazers were closer, but no one was there for the start. The eruption then only lasted 9m32s, and we didn’t even get a second burst.