Month: August 2019

The string of Turban Delays before Grand eruptions continued. At least in the morning, Grand ended up erupting on the Delay, so it didn't matter much. We're also back into the mode where Sput D is frequent and West Triplet is only overflowing.

Mid afternoon the delay did matter. There was a storm to the north, but it looked like it was going to miss us, and it did. Then we had the Turban Delay, and it took three intervals before Grand felt like giving us a One Burst Eruption. Meanwhile a new storm developed, and by the start of the second Turban eruption after the Delay, the rain, along with a strong wind, had started. This weather continued until the end of the One Burst Grand eruption. So of course we got to return without having to deal with getting any wetter. The eruption itself was short, only ten minutes, and there was a distinctive slowdown at around the eight minute mark where Grand went into Big Sawmill mode. But the weather did clear out the benches. They were full as it started, and there may have been about a dozen people there for the end.

Went out for the early night eruption, as hadn't done that this trip. This time, finally, while the Turban intervals were long, there wasn't a Delay. There were quite a few people out for this eruption, as the cloudiness kept the air warmer. It felt more like mid-July, and I didn't need the cold weather gear. But as we were walking back past Castle, it started to sprinkle. This continued during the bike ride back to the cabin, by which time it had stopped.

After a single long Rift eruption, it appears we are back to Sput D in control again. At the same time, it's beginning to seem like having a Turban Delay is a requirement before Grand can erupt.

The morning's eruption had two Delays, and Grand at least erupted on the second one. For the afternoon, there was only one Delay, and Grand erupted on the next Turban eruption. In that case, the interval after the Delay had a normal fill and Turban initiated the eruption.

The second eruption of the day also had a second burst. The first lasted about eight minutes, and the total duration was just over ten. A little disappointing, actually, as the pool drained almost immediately afterwards.

Spent a few hours at Fan & Mortar. While there were definite cycles in activity, they were weak. In both cases, River Vent came on, followed by some splashing in High an Gold Vents. Then everything shut off for several minutes, to be followed by a more progressive start. Angle Vent did shut down without a lot of blipping around at the end, so the cycles themselves didn't last that long.

Didn't make an attempt to go out for the early night Grand eruption, which turned out to be a good move. There was a thunderstorm with hail about then.

It was a day to see One Burst Grand eruptions.

The first was at dawn. Castle was in late steam as I tied down my bike,. The wait started out foggy and the walkway slippery, and for the next hour it got progressively foggier and slipperier. I sort of saw Daisy erupt by seeing a column of steam in that general direction, above the fog. But the little breeze there was pushed the steam away from my view, so I was actually able to see Vent overflow before Turban initiated the eruption.

During the wait, there wasn't much activity from Sput D, only one eruption (and overflow from West Triplet) about an hour before Grand erupted. During and after Grand there was the usual heavy West Triplet overflow and weak Sput D eruption. But the West Triplet also had areas of roiling, as if it was trying to start bursting. I also saw a couple of quick, 30cm high boils on Churn as I was walking by.

So it didn't surprise me to find that a few hours later Rift was erupting. This was the first eruption of Rift since we arrived five days ago. At the same time, Sput D was continuously spitting away. I stuck around to catch the first Grand overflow, at a little over four hours after the previous eruption. From there it was a quick visit to Geyser Hill to check on Aurum and Beehive. I waited maybe a couple of minutes for Aurum, and then since Beehive was being watched, I headed back to Grand.

Rift was still erupting, but Sput D was a lot quieter. As the Rift eruption progressed, it eventually stopped completely. About an hour later, I noticed splashes from Percolator, the first activity there I've seen in quite a while. Normally Percolator is full and overflowing when it erupts, but this time it was empty, and the jets had that thin appearance as if they were coming from down deep. Over at West Triplet, it seemed steamier too, as if it was having one of its deep drain eruptions. (The crowd was too thick to attempt taking a look.)

Meanwhile, Turban had consecutive Delay intervals, with the One Burst Grand eruption one interval after the second Delay. It was about ten minutes after Grand ended that Rift finally quit, too, for a duration of well over three hours.

Came out for the sunset Grand to find West Triplet still drained. Nothing happened down there the whole time I waited for Grand to erupt. This time, at least, Grand erupted on the second Delay. That mean the crowd was still able to see the eruption. Another Turban interval and it would have been dark. The start itself was explosive, maybe 5 meters high, with no preliminary boops or boiling or other warning.

It was a day spent a Norris watching New Crater/Steamboat do little to nothing. Arrived at 06:30 and left at 19:20, and during that time I never saw anything I would consider as an impending eruption. The best we saw was near the end of the wait when I finally felt the need to at least pull the camera tripod out of the bag and attach the phone mount. Otherwise there was a good, strong minor every few hours, but none of them had any sort of vertical component. Also missing was the low rumbling, huffing and thumping that seems to be coming from the North Vent area.

The one amusing part of the day was right as we were leaving, when a couple of surfer dudes, wearing nothing but shorts and sandals, with a towel draped over the shoulders, asked where they could go swimming. The answer they got didn't thrill them, as they were told to try either Boiling River or the Firehole Canyon areas. Someone should have also pointed out to them that the last time someone tried to go "swimming" at Norris, they didn't make it out of the pool at all.

Usually on the day I leave, Grand likes to toss in a long interval to make me regret that decision.

After another short interval after my fifth Grand yesterday, and five days of intervals well shorter than that of Riverside's, we decided that we should try and provoke that longer interval. But Grand refused to cooperate, and instead had another One Burst Grand with an interval just over five hours. And nothing from West Triplet. Things have, or are, changing there, so it should be interesting when we return in a few weeks.

It's been a while since I went out to Grand at night. With the shortened intervals of the last few days, decided to tempt fate until the next long delayed interval.

When I walked past Churn, I noticed that it was below overflow with a bit of a rim. I assume it erupted, but I didn't really miss it.

Arrived with Turban in eruption. There wasn't any overflow that I could hear before the next Turban eruption, about 15 minutes later. Grand erupted before the next Turban, and that interval was also short, about 17 minutes. Otherwise it was a normal One Burst Grand eruption, with an interval around 5-1/2 hours.

'Came out for the next eruption, and was amused to consider that I was arriving at around the 5h10m mark, and that I could be missing the eruption. But the pool was full. Again, there was a Turban eruption that was not preceeded by any audible or visible overflow. The next Turban eruption was less thatn 20 minutes later, and lasted less than four minutes. When Grand started, Turban preceeded it and the interval there was only about 17 minutes, and maybe a minute after I first heard the overflow.

The eruption itself was annoying in it's own way. The first burst ended abruptly at the 7-1/2 minute mark. When the second burst also ended in a reasonable amount of time, instead of lasting several minutes, I was sure I was about to see my first three (or more) burst Grand eruption in years. Instead, nothing happened. The total duration, including the pause, was just under nine minutes. Which in its way was probably close to a record for the least amount of water in a Grand eruption.

Midday I came out to find West Triplet in eruption, along with Sput D. This continued for thirty minutes, so the duration was even longer, and of course, that meant we got to see the start of Rift just as West Triplet ended.

The Turban intervals and durations were unremarkable until then. Then we got a couple of short Turban eruption durations (4m08s and 5m11s) and shorter intervals. Grand itself went only 17-1/2 minutes after Turban, but the overflow had started around the 15 minute mark. The One Burst Grand lasted just over ten minutes, and to play with us, had over a minute of the crater full and sloshing around. (There was a small contingent who were positioned to run to Beehive, ahead of the post Grand crowd, who had to wait this out.) When Vent & Turban did quit, the pause was only 8-1/2 minutes long.

Since Beehive was showing signs of being near erupting (the primary one being it was afternoon), I walked over to Geyser Hill. The Indicator started as I passed Liberty Pool, and this time it was so long that I was able to get there with plenty of time.

The fourth Grand of the day was preceeded by a Turban eruption with no overflow from Grand. That was followed by a delay. Unlike the night before, Grand went from heavy boil into a blue bubble to start the eruption. This time there wasn't any West Triplet activity while I was out there.

That left 6h10m for Grand to have a fifth eruption for the day. Based on recent intervals, that should be plenty of time. But based on past experience, I wouldn't count on it, as Grand does seem to have a tendency to toss in a long (in this case, about seven hour long interval) when you really want a short. (Like when you are packed and leaving, and want to get in that "one last Grand".)

The eruption this morning was in the dark, but this time the clouds parted and there was a nice first quarter moon illuminating the basin. I arrived in time for more anomalous Turban behavior. In this case, the strong overflow decreased as I waited, and was almost non-existent when Turban finally erupted 11 minutes later. I would guess that this was probably a delay, well before the five hour mark. But it wasn't much of a surprise to have Grand erupt on the next Turban, twenty minutes later. A pretty undistinguished One Burst Grand, with nothing from West Triplet again. The main negative is that it was too early, so there was some jerk with a bright light out there illuminating the eruption.

So I did see five eruptions of Grand in one day. In about a 22 hour period, with an hour padding on each side of the period of eruptions. I get the feeling, based on the behavior lately that there will be many more such opportunities in the next few weeks.

This morning's One Burst Grand was actually a little different. First, it took Vent about a minute longer than expected to start. Then, despite the One Burst Grand lasting just over eleven minutes, Vent & Turban continued. This was also a double interval of almost exactly eleven hours.

But while waiting for that eruption, Churn erupted. This was another full height play, lasting about a minute and about ten minutes before Grand. Immediately after I checked, and Churn was down below overflow with a 30cm rim. Sawmill was also low, at least 30cm and exposing some of the orange slime lining the vent. During the Grand eruption there was a second Churn eruption, again full height and duration. This activity is consistent with that of years past, where Churn would erupt in a short series about twenty minutes apart, when Sawmill was in a drain. Waited for a third eruption, but nothing happened.

The next One Burst Grand was fairly undistinguished, although it did continue the trend of intervals of under six hours. West Triplet did erupt during that eruption, but it lasted a little under nine minutes.

It was the next eruption of the day where things got interesting. I saw Turban in eruption as I was tying down my bike at Castle. When I got over to the area, I found that it looked like West Triplet was much higher than normal, just below overflow. About ten minutes later it overflowed weakly for about two minutes, with no activity from any of the sputs. After that, the water level in Grand rose to a good, strong overflow, and then showed waves.

At the 4h56m mark in the Grand interval, there was a strong boop from Grand. Over the next three minutes there were more of these boils. Finally the 5h01m mark, and at least 36 minutes after Turban last started, a boop turned into an actual eruption. This is the shortest interval I have ever seen out of Grand. Late in the One Burst Eruption West Triplet started to overflow. This continued after Grand and Vent and Turban quit. Finally after about eight minutes, West Triplet started splashing. This eruption of West Triplet was accompanied by some weak spitting from Sput D and Percolator, and lasted about 21 minutes. Vent & Turban quit when West Triplet did.

Not a lot of excitement the last few days, and today continued that trend.

Stopped by the Giant platform for a bit. While it's pretty dead, Giant was a bit amusing. It appears the water level in the cone is high. Not only were there a number of angled surges well above the "bite" and over the side of the cone, but a number of times where there was vertial jetting, too. Often I saw what appeared to be the top of a heavy boil taking place just out of site. But Bijou never stopped in a half hour, and only once did I see any water jetting from Masttif

Having seen the end of a Grotto eruption around 09:00, decided that I could/should be there for the next start. I've seen several Grotto Fountain eruptions from Grand, but it's been years since I've seen it up close.

Wasn't disappointed. In the hour I waited, there was an episode of Grotto huffing with a splash or two early on, then quiet. When Grotto Fountain started, it was sudden, going from a strong boil to full eruption in a minute or two. The height itself was impressive. I remember higher, but this was still in the 15 meter range. South Grotto Fountain joined in midway throught, with intermittent splashing, and after ten minutes, Grotto finally joined in. That didn't seem to be all that strong.
The Grotto eruption was still going on three hours later.

There were a couple of One Burst Grand eruptions. What distinguishes them is that that in both cases there was a delay. Three Turban intervals in the morning, but Grand did manage to erupt on the delay in the afternoon. But before that last eruption there was a Turban interval of 24m54s, which was really close. In general, I've noticed that most Turban intervals are well over 21 minutes, and as much as 24 is not unusual. What is unusual are the ones below 20 minutes, and those only after a delay it seems.

I've come to the conclusion that the most obnoxious groups are not the Asian flag tours, but family reunions. These are large groups of people in their own little world, oblivious to the fact that they aren't the center of attention. They are loud and obnoxious and try to take over areas, and they are having such a good time that everyone else is a killjoy if they object to their noise and rudeness. At least the Asian tours seem to keep moving.