Observations for 2018 October 12


Knew that today was going to be fairly uneventful, a good day to catch up on other things besides Giant. It was cloudy at first, but cleared and when the sun was out, felt warm, especially when the wind died down.

Got up early again to catch the morning One Burst Grand eruption. From there, it was down to Fan & Mortar to see if it had erupted, and wait around a while since it hadn't.

From there it was on to Fountain, where it was obvious nothing was going to happen any time soon. So we looped around past Great Fountain, where we had to stop because it was in overflow. There were some nice sized bursts, so it wasn't totally a Flounder.

Back in the Upper Basin it was time for both Grand and Beehive. But first, saw Aurum from the parking lot. Then went over to Geyser Hill and ended up seeing Castle instead. Over at Grand we heard someone call Beehive during the One Burst Grand eruption. Sounds like either no one saw the Indicator, or there wasn't one.

The One Burst Grand was a bit of a weird eruption. It was obvious that we were having a delay, and it was so steamy it was hard to see the pool. Then I saw a nice boop boil over the vent, but nothing much happened after that for about half a minute. Then, in quick succession, there were several more boops, one maybe two meters high. Then the pool was quiet. It was another minute before Turban finally started, and it didn't sound all that vigorous. But it got stronger, and it looked like Grand's pool was getting steamier. Finally it became obvious that we were getting waves, and about to get a delayed eruption start.

Finally went back to Fan & Mortar where nothing much happened, again.

Over the last few days, it seems to me that there's been evidence of some sort of over-trickle from Sawmill. The way the snow was melted was one sign. Another was that today there were wet spots and pools in the runoff channel, long after the snow had melted. The photo is an attempt to show this. Unfortunately, this is about as high a water level as I've seen, but this past summer, I never saw any evidence of any water down those channels. (Maybe it's just wishful thinking...)