Month: July 2020

Out at dawn to sit in the fog. Grand erupted on the Delay, and even had a second burst. The wind picked up enough to push the fog away once the eruption started.

A few hours later was headed out to Castle and then Grand when got the call that Beehive's Indicator was erupting. So instead went over to Geyser Hill to catch Beehive up close. Considering the one to three day intervals and the number of no-Indicator eruptions, have seen a few from Geyser Hill. This one drenched the walkway well beyond Anemone.

Castle was erupting as we finally got down that way, and the One Burst Grand interval was less than six hours despite a Delay.

From there it was time for Daisy, and arrive about two minutes before the eruption. I didn't see anything from Splendid during that brief time. The Daisy duration was longer, 3-1/2 minutes this time.

From there caught an Atomizer major eruption, then returned to Daisy again. This time was around long enough to confirm that Splendid was doing nothing prior to Daisy's eruption. Worse, the duration of the eruption was just over three minutes.

While waiting for Daisy, a coyote wandered past between Splendid and the trees, heading south. After Daisy's eruption, we just got on the main bike trail when several coyotes off to the southwest started yipping and barking. Usually hear them from that area in the evening or dark, not in the middle of the day.

Caught the fourth Grand eruption of the day, and this time not only did it not have a Delay (I was there fairly early and saw several intervals), but there was a second burst. It was a short eruption, a bit over ten minutes long, but Grand made only a feeble attempt to refill, then Vent and Turban quit.

Heading out to Grand when I noticed that Crystal Spring was in overflow and Belgian was full. I've yet to see any pattern in their levels.

There were never really any good waves. But suddenly Grand had a couple of small boops, about 1/2 meter high. Almost immediately, the pool began to drop. It was four minutes before Turban started erupting, and by that time, the interval was well over 25 minutes for a Delay.

The duration of the Turban eruption wasn't out of the ordinary, lasting a bit over five minutes, so at least a delay of two Turban intervals was expected. It was a surprise then to see a full Grand Pool and waves at the fifteen minute mark. There wasn't any overflow that I could see. A minute later, with overflow just starting to be vislble due to its steam, Turban started almost explosively. It took Grand only about 30 seconds to join in.

Eight and a half minutes in, it looked like Grand had paused, only to restart and go into a Bit Sawmill mode for another minute. Vent and Turban, at least, didn't quit.

There was another West Triplet eruption after Grand, this one only lasting 6 minutes. Belgian and Crystal had dropped a bit, the latter below overflow, and Slurp was noisily erupting at depth.

It appears that Aurum may be shifting into summer mode. Spent a little time around it well after the six hour mark. I did get to see the pool just north of Doublet erupt. When I arrived, it was withing the lower rim, but splashing a few centimeters high. The wash zone around it was dry. At 16:34, I saw it erupting to about 1 meter, and the wash zone was filled. That was the end of the eruption. I don't know the name or number, or anything else about what it does.

Saw Turban erupting as I tied down my bike. 35 minutes later I saw the next Turban eruption. For about ten minutes, it looked good, but there were never any waves. Fortunately, the next Turban eruption had no overflow, and Grand erupted on the second Turban fill. This was another two burst eruption, with excellent lighting. West Triplet started during the second burst.

It appears the way to keep Rift from erupting is to want to video record the start of an eruption. I've now seen a number of complete West Triplet eruptions, and never has Rift shown any inclination to start. Percolator and Sput D tend to start about ten minutes into West Triplet's eruption, then they quit shortly after West Triplet ends. One variation was today's later eruption where Sput D stopped for about five minutes.

It being full moon, went out for a few eruptions with that in mind. Unfortunately, Castle erupted before moonrise, and the One Burst Grand didn't seem to have the same moonbows of the night before. Did finally get the Rift start. It didn't seem to matter as Grand erupted about 15 minutes later, but wasn't able to record it.

Did another check on Daisy. This time there wasn't any boiling in Splendid prior to Daisy's eruption, but there was water in the orange lobe and it dropped as expected. The boiling afterwards didn't seem quite as strong, but was from both vents, and I didn't stay around for long.

Grand was cooperative in the morning. I think I arrived for a Turban Delay, as the first Turban duration was well over six minutes, and for the next one Grand's pool didn't have much, if any, overflow. The real cooperation was that there were two bursts, and it was fairly obvious that the pool was not going to drain before the second burst started. West Triplet started after, but there was no eruption of Rift.

Came out early for the next Grand opportunity, arriving with West Triplet and the sputs all in action. Again, there wasn't an eruption of Rift. This time there definitely was a Turban Delay, as the interval was over 36 minutes and Grand even had a couple of small boops.

Two Turban intervals later, we got another Grand eruption were there wasn't much doubt there was going to be a second burst, but this time , after about 45 seconds, Grand went into Big Sawmill mode. At that point it felt like it was trying to stop, and just couldn't. This lasted for at least 20 to 30 seconds, when finally the activity picked up a little bit. This continued on for a burst lasting nearly three minutes.

Then finally got the opportunity to see Grand by moonlight. There were occasional clouds covering the moon for a few moments, but nothing threatening. It was One Burst Grand, but the moonbows were some of the best I've seen. From West Triplet, for moments there was visible a full arc extending to the left and over the steam from the Daisy Group. At times, it seemed like the stronger parts, in Grand's water column, had a hint of color in it. Best of all, the dozen or so people out there didn't feel the need to provide their own illumination.

Arrived at Norris at our usual time. It was three hours before there was any activity worthy of note. It was a nice, strong surge with the usual little bit of vertical to the right of the North Vent. Following that, about every half hour to hour there was a similar event, but in most cases there wasn't any followup. The next to last event was at 13:33.

The following event was about 45 minutes later. This one looked different from the beginning. It was stronger, thicker, and the vertical surging was definite and pronounced. Within moments, it built into the eruption start, at 14:15. I somehow managed to capture this on video, despite my efforts to screw it up. I'll post the video the middle of next week.

I waited too long to get a height measurement. By the time I got back to the bench, all I got was 50%, which works out to about 65 meters or about 210 feet. Still taller than any other geyser but Giant, but well below what it had been a few moments earlier. This was probably because of the wind direction causing much of the water to flow back into the North Vent. The water was already brown after about five minutes, and threatening to have a full choke. Unfortunately, that never happened. Most of the runoff was behind and toward Echinus. There were several new runoff channels forming over there, while nothing was going in west of the North Vent's runoff channel. That channel was practically dry for most of the eruption we saw.

Thanks to the wind direction, it was easy to see the base of the water columns and the vents for most of the eruption. At times it was obvious that there were several areas of forced steam around and in front of the South Vent. In addition, it was easily apparent that there is some sort of third vent to the right of the North Vent. The video I took shows this clearly.

Finally left the area after a couple of hours. The steam was mostly steady, but some chugging could be seen and heard when the wind shifted more toward the north.

In the Upper Basin, attempted to go out for a post-sunset, early moonlit eruption of Grand. But a thunderstorm moved in and we had no desire to get soaked by it, so headed in before the One Burst Grand eruption could happen.

Started the day out by waiting for Daisy to erupt. Splendid was quiet when I arrived, but it was pushing water out into the orange northeast lobe. As Daisy activity increased, the water in Splendid dropped so that the water was no longer going into that orange area. Then, about a minute before Daisy, Splendid's Main Vent started to boil up to about 1/2 meter. This is the first time I've seen such activity in a long time. It quit as Daisy started, which was expected.

The Daisy eruption as again short, this time 3m17s. But a few minutes after the end, Splendid started having boils from both the Main Vent and the Side Boiler. This activity continued for about 20 minutes, and I left a few minutes later. I stopped by about an hour after Daisy, and did notice a small boil from the Main Vent. So there's definitely a small pickup in the activity from Splendid. Will have to see if there's any progression over the next few months.

At Grand, West Triplet was erupting as I arrived. After it ended there was a series of indistinguished Turban eruptions, which lead to a delay. Finally, three more Turban intervals later, Grand had its One Burst Eruption. West Triplet started almost immediately. I expected this eruption to trigger Rift, but was disappointed.

When I came out for the next Grand eruption, I was surprised to see Percolator and Sput D erupting with West Triplet completely drained and dry, and Rift quiet too. About ten minutes later West Triplet started from deep down in the vent. This eruption finally resulted in an eruption of Rift. It was right after the end of West Triplet when Grand erupted. This time we got a second burst with low sunlight and clear skies behind the water column.

The first Grand eruption of the day was distinguished by being a short One Burst Eruption that had a long period of the pool pulsating before draining. From there it made sense to go to Geyser Hill, as it had been nearly three days since the last Beehive eruption, and was in the latter half of the Aurum interval.

Aurum seemed not a vigorous as at other times, but still looked promising. So was in the wrong location when Beehive suddenly began. Because of the strong, shifting wind, over by Sponge we got soaked several times. Shortly after than we got the Aurum eruption with an interval just under five hours, so a bit longer.

The next wait at Grand was long, for no apparent reason. No delay, no West Triplet, not even heavy overflows. Just a couple of hours of weak Turban eruptions until it was well out of the NPS prediction window and the crowd started to disperse. But once again, Grand did reward us with with a seconds burst, and despite the wind, the sunlight made for a nice view.

It's interesting in how some observers are intent on recording every spit of every little feature and sput of a group, then fail to report the most interesting activity. A case in point is how some are reporting all the little sputs around Daisy, yet then fail to note the duration of the Daisy eruption itself. That's a number that changes over the years, and seems to be related to the activity (or lack of activity) of Splendid. Back when Splendid was active, the durations were about 30 seconds longer, and if the current value were to start showing a change back to that, it would be good to know. Besides, it's not that hard to calculate.

With the weather forcecast for damp and cold, it seemed like a good day to be elsewhere. Did get out for a One Burst Grand in the morning. Expected to wait a while, with all the recent longer intervals, but this time it cooperated and had an interval less five and a half hours. So was able to hit the road earlier than expected.