Observations for 31 August 2014


Decided after the previous wet Grand that I would skip the next one. Woke up around the start of the eruption window, and hearing the raindrops on the cabin roof, I knew I made the right decision.

So I figured that a 12h30m double interval would probably be safe. I didn’t expect, at the 11h50m mark to hear a radio call that Grand was in eruption. The only problem with the call was that it was based on a distant observation, and in the past there’ve been false alarms. I didn’t want to just accept this and then have a second call, for the real eruption, a few hours later. So I went down and checked, and confirmed that it really did erupt. On the way back, the rain started up again, and proceeded to last all the rest of the morning.

Thanks to the rain, didn’t get out into the basin until well after noon. Got out to Grand with West Triplet erupting, and Rift starting a few minutes after I arrived. Around the same time it became obvious that Grand was pouring out water. That’s when the fun began. With small waves coming off of a full pool, Grand boiled up about a foot. This was the first “boop” I’ve seen in years. This was followed by several more boops over a period of close to four minutes. During this time the pool dropped at least once, then came back. Finally, a boil turned into the actual eruption.

The eruption was another one burst, and Rift ended shortly after Grand. But one thing it does show is that there is a good chance that those who want to make a radio call when Grand starts to boil are going be making corrections.

With the wet weather, Aurum’s intervals dropped down into the springtime range of around four to five hours. For those who don’t visit during that time, but who want to see Aurum, this presented an opportunity to forego the usual interminable long waits of summer. So after Grand I joined them. The railing was packed, but I decided that with the sunlight and wind direction, sitting to the north was just as good an option. Turned out only had to wait about ten minutes, and then got an eruption with a full rainbow anchored on the right by Aurum itself.

In the evening, went out for a post-sunset eruption of Grand. Nothing much out of the ordinary, but once again it was a short interval and didn’t even need to wait a full Turban interval.