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Observations for 2018 September 14


After last night's strong hot period, decided that getting some sleep would be a good idea. Got back out about seven hours later and it seemed pretty clear that nothing much had happened. At best, there's been some Southwest Vents activity hours earlier. So it was just a matter of waiting.

Almost immediately we got a Bijou pause lasting about 4 minutes. Since it was time for Grand, and nothing was going to happen for about a hour, it was a good time to go there. I saw the start from near Wave Spring, very nicely backlit from that vantage point. Unfortunately, it was a short One Burst Grand.

Back at Giant, waited through a series of pauses, including one that lasted about 3-1/2 minutes. An hour later, we got what we'd been waiting for. This hot period did not have a restart. While there was some nice surging in Giant, far too much of it was just bigger versions of the normal surging, and that generally doesn't lead into an eruption.

The afternoon Grand did have a second burst. It was only a little over ten minutes long, so years ago a third burst could've been expected. Instead, Vent and Turban quit as if it had been a much longer interval.

Up to this point, about 5 hours after the hot period, it had been fairly calm. Now the winds picked up, despite the warming day. But didn't spend much time in it since the next weak hot period was right afterwards, and then missed the a stronger one a few hours later.

Coming back from the missed hot period was something different. After getting past a bison moving fairly rapidly (for a bison) from the Inn parking lot toward the Lower Store, I heard a commotion over in the Old Faithful circle. There was someone standing right out on the cone, oblivious to people, including NPS personnel, yelling at him to get back. At one point he lay down with his upper torso over the rim, and tried to climb in. Finally he wandered slowly back toward the Lodge.

I bicycled over there and caught a glimpse of him as Law Enforcement tried to make contact. He seemed in a different reality, and the facial tattoos gave the message that he'd had earlier encounters with the law. He never did cooperate, and was arrested in the Lodge parking lot. I'm sure he enjoyed coming down in the Mammoth jail.

Did a repeat at sunset, with a Grand eruption followed by a weak hot period. So went in to wait for a few hours before heading out to wait. Ended up being out there until well after midnight.