Month: August 2019

Grand is slowly getting later each day. I expect it soon to suddenly be back to its old habit of erupting just before dawn.

But this morning it did provide us with two bursts. The first burst was only 8m30s, while the total eruption duration was less than 10 minutes. It made no attempt to try for a third burst, but at least Vent and Turban continued,

As I was getting on the bike, Castle started. It was a surprse to me, and it was preceeded by a couple of large surges that looked more like the aftermath of a minor.

Down at Fan & Mortar there was a cycle of activity, but it was weak. When the River Vent started, almost immediately the High and Gold Vents started, too. Then they looked really strong for a minute or so, before dying down. So again, looks like not much going on there.

In the afternoon, we could have had a second burst from Grand, but despite the One Burst being only nine minutes long, there was no attempt at refilling the pool.
West Triplet started during that time, and continued for 33 minutes, but there was no Rift eruption with it. Sput D and Percolator started up about halfway through, and then quit when West Triplet quit. That was also the time when Vent & Turban also quit.

Was considering going out to the early nighttime Grand, but we had the first strong thunderstorm of the trip, and decided I didn't like the idea of sitting in the cold and damp.

If the purpose of geyser predictions is to help visitors see geyser eruptions, then the ones for Grand couldn't be better for having the opposite effect.

The window the NPS is using is an hour and a half long, from five hours to six and one half. Not only is this too short, but it is centered wrong. Worse, they round down, so there are times with the window starts as soon as 4h50m. So the NPS is getting people out to Grand too early, making them wait the better part of an hour when there is little to no chance of anyone seeing an eruption. Then they end the window early, when there is still an excellent chance that Grand will erupt. This is especially important when there's a long Turban interval delay.

The benches go from near empty to full within ten or so minutes of the opening of the window. If Grand hasn't erupted when the NPS window closes, gaps form in the fomerly full benches.

From what I've seen, the range for Grand eruptions is 5h45m to 7h15m. (I have seen a 5h36m) This could be easily adjusted to 5h30m and 7h30m. The problem is that I don't know of any way to communicate this information to anyone in the NPS who is in a position to fix the problem, or who even cares. It just reinforces the impression that the NPS really doesn't care about visitor services, or even wants to try to provide decent information to those who have no idea what is going on.

After yesterday's adventures it was time to get back to normal.

Grand has finally shifted enough that there was no reason to not be out for the early morning eruption. I like that time of day, so it was disappointing for it to be going when it was just dark enough to not be seen well.

While waiting, I did get to see a minor Churn eruption in progress. What I saw was some boiling to about 1/2 meter for about 5-10 seconds. About 20 minutes later, after the One Burst Grand eruption, I got over there to find that Churn was just below overflow, and that Sawmill was high, but nowhere near overflow.

Decided to spend some time down basin, just because there's so little going on down there that it's hard to get motivated to make a bike ride specifially to watch nothing.

At Fan & Mortar, I didn't see much organized activity. When Angle finally died down, River Vent came on almost immediately. The runoff from Bottom Vent was dry.

But I did see the otters, a blue heron and an osprey which was perching on trees and seemed to be letting the otters do its fishing.

From there I rode up on Spa just starting to overflow. There was increased overflow and boiling while was there, but I didn't stick around. Grotto had quit about an hour earlier, so not sure what this means.

After another One Burst Grand it was off to Aurum to take advantage of the shorter intervals. Didn't take long to get an up close recording of the full eruption.

In the evening, arrived to see Rift sputtering away. It was accompanied by Sput D and Percolator, but eventually both of those quieted down. Grand itself had a Delay, and then Rift finally quit about an hour after I'd arrived. So instead of a nice sunset eruption, instead we got a One Burst Grand as it was slowly getting dark.

On Wednesday we drove out to Cody. I know that I haven't driven to there from Fishing Bridge since the late 1980s, so it was almost a new experience.

We were in Cody because the next morning we had been invited to join a photographic survey of thermal areas in the park. Which we did. The original plan was to leave at around 07:00, but that got pushed back after we experienced the thick fog for the last New Crater/Steamboat eruption.

We left from the Cody airport in a 4-seater Cessna 182 plane. It was a beautiful day. It was completely clear and while a bit windy on the ground, nothing much higher up. We were supposed to be up at 09:00 for a two hour flight, but there wasn't a reason to hurry, so did get off the ground until 09:30. There was little to no turbulance during the 15 minutes it took to get to Sylvan Pass and our first view of Yellowstone Lake. From there is was only five minutes or so to get to West Thumb, our first destination.

At each destination we circled a couple of time about 2000 feet up. It's quick and fast, but still fun to recognize landmarks and features from up there.

We visited, in turn, West Thumb, Heart Lake, Shoshone, the Upper Basin, Midway and the Lower Basin, Gibbon and Geyser Creek, Norris, the Canyon (there are geysers in there...) Crater Hills and Mud Volcano.

There wasn't much geyser activity to be seen. Did see a large puff from the location of Minute Man in Shoshone. Then saw some nice, huge bursts from Imperial as we flew past. Also think I saw steam from Avalanche in Geyser Creek.

It's much easier to see pools from the air than the cones. The pool color (black, brown, green or blue) offers a constrast to the slightly gray white of the geyser areas. If something was steaming, we could pick out the cone or feature. Most striking are the deep blue of deep pools like Giantess or Columbia at Heart Lake.

And yes, Grand Prismatic does look like the calendar pictures. By the time we passed over, around 11:00, it was warm and clear and there wasn't much steam to obscure the brilliant colors. While the calendars may be enchanced and Photoshopped, it really doesn't need much. The primary way the calendars are exagerating is that even as large as it is, from our height it wasn't any bigger than the full moon.

At Norris we could seen the steam coming from New Crater/Steamboat from miles away despite ground reports saying it was dry. The huge grayish brown area of dead and dying trees surrounding the vent (mostly to the northeast and the parking lot) just can't be appreciated from the ground in the same way.

After all that, we headed back to Cody via the pass north of Sylvan. (I need to find the name). From there you can see a large arch in the Absaroka Mountains. (Again, I need to find the name). We arrived back at about noon, so we got in (and paid for) an extra half hour.

Eventually, after we get home, I'm going to try to take our videos and post some of the better parts.

If there were disappointments, it was that it's just too fast. You only spend a few minutes at most at each area, and from the air, each area is only a minute of so from the next one. Our biggest gap was going from Heart Lake to Shoshone. Also, photography is hard and can be disappointing. Suzanne was on the photographer's side, so she was able to get some good shots and video, but often I was looking over her shoulder and trying to position the camera so it was recording something, which can be distracting.

If given the chance again, I'll take it.

After we got back to our cabin, we did go out for the evening One Burst Grand. While tying up the bikes at Castle, we did see an eruption of Tilt, which lasted long enough for us to walk up on the end.

The Grand intervals lengthened out a bit, so that the morning eruption occurred in daylight, but that also meant the first eruption I would see would be around noon. So rode down basin just to check things out. I stopped at the bike-rack at Castle and the geyser started almost immediately. It was a nice backlit full steam eruption.

From there I rode down basin to find not only Grotto, but Spa in eruption. Grotto was well into a Marathon eruption, as Bijou was only splashing weakly, and the Marathon Pool was down.

While watching Spa, Riverside started, so I watched it for a while from the bridge, where Fan & Mortar wasn't doing much.

Solstice was still in eruption, too.

At Grand, things were quiet except for Turban. Finally had something other than a One Burst Grand, as there was tall second burst. West Triplet also erupted starting shortly after Grand, and quit sometime after the end. I didn't observe any activity from Sput D or from Percolator.

Walking away saw Bulger start, but no activity from Bulger's Hole, and Old Tardy started during that eruption, too. From the bike rack, I also saw a nice eruption of Tilt.

While walking out to the One Burst Grand, as I passed by Crested Pool I saw my first Churn eruption of the year. While there have been reports of Churn erupting this year, from what I'd head it was only a big boil a meter or so high. This looked like those of previous years. It lasted about a minute, and several of the shots were easily to four meters, if not more. When I walked up, Churn was just below overflow, with a 30cm wide white rim around the pool. The Churn eruption was also during an eruption of Oblong.

At Grand West Triplet erupted, along with Sput D and Percolator. The sput eruptions were longer than when West Triplet was just overflowing. And then soon we got Rift to erupt.

After Grand I waited for the end of Rift for a while, but it just kept on going. But as I left, I noticed Bulger starting an eruption, and as I rounded the trees next to the walkway, I saw Bulger's Hole in full eruption. It was full of milky water about 10cm below the rim. It was throwing burst of water at the back several meters high. It continued for over five minutes, even after Bulger itself had stopped. Then it slowly drained down, making some gurgling sounds.

After a report of Fountain having a 36 minute duration, went out to see what it might do next. Other than a tall eruption of Morning's Thief, not much. It really does sound (and look) a lot like high tide crashing against a rocky shore.

For the evening Grand, we didn't get a delay, but the Turban durations were short, and it wasn't until they got longer that Grand showed any signs of activity. During the wait nothing other than Turban erupted, another sign that the West Triplet Overflow mode was over.