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Observations for 2019 September 07


Grand had some longer intervals overnight, so it was late morning before heading out. A cool morning, but with little chance of any wet coming from the sky. Got out in time to see the full Turban Delay interval of 31m15s. Grand had a nice explosive start, but the breeze cooperated so it was possible to see Turban start, too.

It was another two burst eruption, and this time the second burst wasn't that long. But the crater showed no attempt to refill for a third eruption, and Vent and Turban actually quit afterwards.

From there it was down basin for a look at Giant & co. Spent an hour watching Bijou splash away, with only one slowdown during that time. The platform was dry, despite yesterday's rains. I did see some splashes from Mastiff's front vent, and the back vent was sending low water horizontally about a couple of meters. Giant's water level also appeared high, so that there was some nice vertical surging on occasion. But on the whole, there was nothing much going on, despite the decrease in Grotto marathon eruptions.

For the afternoon eruption of Grand, during the hour wait there wasn't any activity from Sput D until moments before Grand started. This one was explosive, with an initial burst rocketing up about seven or eight meters. It was just one burst, but at least Vent & Turban continued afterwards.


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Observations for 2019 September 06


After a summer of mostly nice weather, woke up to the sound of rain on the roof, and a weather forecast of showers for at least the next five days.

It wasn't raining much, so no excuse to not go out to Grand and get reacquainted with what it's like to see geysers in the rain. But was able to head on before the showers started, and there wasn't much wind when it was precipitating. We also got two bursts, the first ending at 7-1/2 minutes, with the second consisting of well over two minutes of Big Sawmill. The only remarkable thing about it was that Vent & Turban didn't quit.

Before heading out for the afternoon Grand, I discovered that the ravens had attacked by bike and ripped up one of the handlebar grips. The one I'd fixed just a few weeks ago, not the one I will probably have to fix before next season. Maybe it was ravens responsible for the bike rack pileup the other morning.

Got out there during a gap in the rain, but we never really got wet during the wait. The first Turban interval I saw was six seconds short of an official Delay, so no surprise that Grand erupted two Turban intervals later. It wasn't that cold, but really steamy, so couldn't tell if I saw the start of Turban or not. The Vent start time in relation to Grand says that I didn't.


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Observations for 2019 September 05


The observations were a bit less today because it was time to take care of things in West Yellowstone. But just getting there was full of surprises. First it was the RV that tried to go beneath the Upper Gas Station canopy. At least the driver only knocked loose the first vent cover, and not the air conditioning unit.

Then it was the injured bison walking down the middle of the road at the Thud Group. It was covered with pine needles, too, so I would think it had had an automotive encounter. Just west of the Madison Campground was another bison on the north side of the road. The time of day was when everyone heads in from West Yellowstone, and I was wondering why I wasn't seeing any oncoming traffic. That was because there was a 1.5 mile long backup due to people stopping to see this one, lone bison.

Before we headed out, did go out for a One Burst Grand eruption. Nothing much to report there, other than it looks like the behavior of Sput D might be decoupling from Turban. There were a couple of times where there were two small eruptions of the sput between eruptions of Turban. Also, two Turban intervals before the Grand eruption the Turban interval was six seconds under 25 minutes. So officially it wasn't a delay, but Turban seems to have thought it was. The duration was almost 6-1/2 minutes, and Grand finally did erupt two Turban intervals later.

We got back in time for the next Grand. This turned out to be a two burst eruption, but unfortunately, the second burst lased almost 2-1/2 minutes. Sput D was active both before and after, with heavy overflow from West Triplet after. This seems to be the latest norm. I expect there to be another Rift in a few days, too.

With reports of a long Fountain duration, we went out there on the off chance of seeing a geyser eruption worth seeing. Instead Fountain started just before it got too dark to seen, but too light to justify the bright lights. With the huge crowd there, we left getting the duration to someone who likes watch the surf crashing against the rocks at high tide.

And between the time we drove over the overpass and parked at the Lower Ham's store, Grand started, so instead we headed in for the night.


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Observations for 2019 September 04


Decided to go out in the morning even though the Grand interval was well over six hours. Got to Castle where I saw Vent jetting away, so I headed back in for breakfast.

Went out early for the next Grand eruption, and got to see that yesterday's Rift eruption didn't mean a shift back to West Triplet erupting. Instead we got an active Sput D along with frying pan activity from Sputnik and heavy steaming from back in the rocks from Sput F2. The Turban intervals were fairly long, one just 20 seconds short of a Delay. During the wait the wind picked up quite a bit. But the eruption had a second burst, so there was no reason to complain. Except maybe because the people down by Rift didn't get soaked, as was expected.

Afterwards, because we were taking our time walking back to the bikes, we heard the "water in Beehive's Indicator" call just after crossing the bridge. I would have liked to have stayed longer at the bridge, as there were two otters in the Firehole downstream. But needed to get to Geyser Hill in case the indicator was short. As it turned out, it was a long indicator and had to wait a bit. The eruption itself, unlike Grand, got people wet down by Plume.

The day ended with an evening wait. Turban had a Delay that never looked it Grand was going to erupt, and then took four more intervals before Grand finally showed signs of life. The pool filled early, but the runoff was at the expected time. With the pool having strong waves, Vent started overflowing and Grand followed immediately after. Turban joined in about 10 seconds later. This was another One Burst Grand, and unfortunately, the sun had already dropped below the ridgeline, so the lighting wasn't as good as it had been all wait.


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Observations for 2019 September 03


So the second geyser of the day I see in eruption is Churn, from over by the bike rack at Castle. It was a normal eruption, lasting about a minute and about 2-3 meters high. I was over at Grand twenty minutes later when there was a second eruption, just like the first, except maybe even taller. Or it maybe the first looked shorter because I was farther away.

The first geyser I saw erupting was Rift. It continued for several more hours, and during that time there were frequent small, short eruptions by Sput D. Sput F2 was steaming heavily, but I didn't see any indication of steam from Sputnik. There was even a short low-pool eruption of Percolator.

Arrived at Grand Group with Turban in a delay that eventually lasted over 30 minutes. This was followed by a second Turban Delay, this one about 33 minutes long. In both cases the Turban eruption duration was long, 6-1/2 and then seven minutes. The following Turban eruptions were much shorter, with poor overflow and little sign that Grand was trying to erupt. Rift ended three Turban eruptions after that. Finally, six Turban eruptions later, we finally got our eruption, an interval of about 8h18m, which is probably the longest interval of the year.

This activity was reminiscent of activity that's been seen before, when Rift would matter. Grand would stall out until a couple of Turban intervals after Rift had quit. I haven't seen this sort of behavior for years. It will be interesting to see in what mode the group is in tomorrow. Will West Triplet be active, or just overflowing.

Came out again before sunset, and this time Grand was a bit more cooperative. The first Turban interval seen was another Delay, with Grand having a boop at the 35 minute mark. The lighting was from low, as the sun was near the ridge, which made it easy to see any variation in the pool. There were never any good waves, and immediately after the boop, the pool dropped and it took 4 more minutes before Turban finally erupted. This eruption lasted almost 7-1/2 minutes.

Twenty minutes later, overflow was poor but Grand's pool was high, and rising. Turban started, and Grand kept rising, and the overflow started. Over the next two minutes, the pool kept getting higher and the waves kept getting bigger, until it was pouring water off. I expected an explosive start, but it was a normal build up of boils into bursts and then a full eruption. Vent started only 1-1/2 minutes after Grand, and the whole eruption, like the one earlier, lasted less than ten minutes.


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Observations for 2019 September 02


Arrived at Norris even earlier than yesterday. The minor activity from New Crater/Steamboat had picked up a little, with notable activity every 20 to 30 minutes. Then starting around 10:00 they started getting big enough to get out the camera in case something happened. Then there was a huge attempted start around 11:07, followed by hours of nothing.

At least it was another nice day, even if the wind picked up in the afternoon and the cover to my truck became a sail.

When we left at sunset, I remarked how the activity of the last few hours looked no better than the day before. I didn't expect another attempt at erupting until around midnight, and dreaded the thought that we would end up coming back for a third day of waiting for nothing.


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Observations for 2019 September 01


Another of those days wasted at Norris. There was something interesting every hour or so, but it wasn't sustained, and until the last one we saw at 19:15, just before leaving, none had much of a followup.

I also did a walk through the Back Basin and record video of how it looks in the steamy morning.


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Observations for 2019 August 31


Today was a day to get out and about. Went to Lone Star, where it appears we arrived just after the previous activity had completely finished. So we had a bit of a wait, but there was no hurry to be anywhere else.

Turns out that this time there wasn't a minor eruption prior to the major eruption. Instead we got about an hour and a half of splashing which turned into sloshing which turned into what kept looking like the start of a real eruption. When it finally erupted, it was immediately apparant that we were getting the major eruption.

On the way out, we stopped at the little thermal area just off the biketrail to see the small geyser on the hillside. After the Lone Star eruption, we continued our tour of the thermal features by heading out across the meadow toward the bridge. The area was completely dry, surprising considering how wet the weather has been this summer. But that also meant that we had absolutely no bugs bothering up.

On the south side of the river we did encounter one area where we had to watch our step, but you got into the squish only if you weren't paying attention.

I've never been out to that area, so was impressed by some of the spouters and sputs out there. There area also lots of deathtraps out there, features with large overhangs, or small, hot holes hidden in the grasses.

But most impressive of all was Buried Geyser. It's way up on the hillside, with an impressive, yellowish-tan runoff channel and lots of beading in the formations around the vent. The runoff disappears into a couple of caves, only to reappear farther down.

After we got back, it was time for a Grand eruption. Got out in time for a Turban Delay that had several minutes of Grand booping. It then took two Turban eruption intervals before we finally got a nice two burst eruption.