The snow picked back up in the morning as we were loading up to head out. We were the first to head down basin. It was time for Grand, and the snow was deep enough that we decided to walk and not use the bikes. The boardwalks were really slick, especially on the older, polished plastic boards. But the view was wonderful, because it was dead calm and the clouds were actually starting to break, despite the snow.
The One Burst Grand didn't make us wait, and then it was time to head on toward Giant. That's when we noticed that not only was Bijou off, but there appeared to be a surge from Mastiff. Getting down there was slow going, thanks to the slippery walkways, but when we arrived it seemed obvious that there was some sort of medium to weak hot period activity. While there was a bit of water running down on the far left, that could have been from Feather and not Mastiff. In any case, it gave us a time to return for the next activity.
So there was time to check out Fan & Mortar, which did nothing while we were there, and see an eruption of Riverside. We trudged back to my truck at the Lower Ham's by the biketrail, not wanting to deal with the slippery walkways a second time.
Returned to the Giant platform by bike about 2-1/2 hours after the activity we saw, and then waited. It was pretty nice by then. Some sun, and absolutely no wind, which after this past summer, was quite a relief and made the cold easy to take. Grotto was in eruption, and there had't been sort of activity from the Southwest Vents recently.
It was the third pause after we arrived that things got interesting. It was only a minute from when we saw water in Mastiff until the start of Feather. Within a minute Mastiff was overflowing, and unlike the last few days, was surging and boiling up nicely. Saw at least one that was about 2 meters high, It took a while, but eventually Cave started to erupt, the first real activity we'd seen from it. There was no wind, so other than the steam coming from Mastiff's overflow, there wasn't any obscuring of the activity.
When Mastiff finally dropped, it took a minute for Bijou to finally restart. Feather never really calmed down, and with Bijou back on, Posthole started up too. Giant began surging, with long, sustained boil-ups from what seemed like a high water level. There were distinct pauses between the surges, but each on was little bigger then the previous, and they were putting out more and more water.
We finally got the eruption on a surge that was well above the cone, one that put out enough water to roll the log signs. There was still no wind, so the steamcloud rose straight up from the water column. The water discharge was not being pushed to the north, so Feather & co. weren't being inundated, but instead were actually erupting fairly strong steam.
Because of the conditions, there were very few people out and about the whole duration. At the start, a group of a half-dozen tourists were there to join us.
Grotto quit during Giant's eruption, but started again shortly before that last water from Giant was visible. The duration was long because everytime it looked like Giant had finished, it would put a spray of water out of the cone and on the platform.
After Giant, of course the thing to do is go and catch the next One Burst Grand eruption.
At Sawmill, I noticed what were either some changes, or the way the snow behaves in old runoff channels. In the morning, I could definitely see gaps along the runoff channels, as if the snow had been melted there. The water level in Sawmill was low, but it looked like there was a high water mark high enough for runoff. In the afternoon, all the snow had melted from the area, and there was water running down those same channels, with the water level in Sawmill high, almost at overflow. Will keep a watch on it for the few days we have left here.