Observations for 19 July 2018


Today was a day to ignore New Crater/Steamboat. I gave it yesterday, but after several days of spending all day in the Bijou Cage, I needed a break. So it was personal matters and a couple of one burst Grand eruptions.

Did spend some time at Fan & Mortar, but they never looked good. With the lengthening interval, I did get sucked down into some extremely minor activity that I would normally ignore, but didn't want to miss it.

With most the geyser gazers gone to Norris, the Upper Basin is a very different place. The radio is mostly silent. There wasn't much of a crowd at either a late morning Grand or, as the photo shows, a mid-afternoon Beehive. The smaller crowds seems to indicate that it's gazers who cause the crowds at both places. Which is a bit ironic since there's a group of gazers who go out of there way to encourage visitors to gather at both geysers, while others (and sometimes the same people) complain about the crowding.

The time for moonlight Grand eruptions has begun, so we went out for the midnight Grand. Only one burst, as usual, but even with a quarter moon, we could see faint moonbows in the runoff channel steam.

I've updated the posting for 17 July 2018 to include a couple of photos of where two of the Giant Platform signs ended up. During the previous Giant activity, the signs used to get put back the same day, if not at the end of the eruption itself.