Started the day in a foggy Grand/Sawmill Group. Was out because it was a longer than average interval for Grand, but arrived right at the end. Did get to see the Sawmill Group in a deep drain mode, with Oval erupting down deep from the north vent, and Slurp a noisy fumarole I could hear walking up past Scalloped.
Came in to get more organized, and got back out to see my first Sawmill eruption in years. The group was still well below overflow otherwise. Tardy started about ten minutes after I arrived, quitting a few minutes later. Within a couple of minutes, Sawmill did the same. That is the sort of behavior I remember from the Group when Sawmill was having short low pool eruptions.
Saw another Sawmill eruption before the next Grand wait. That eruption featured activity by Percolator, Sput D and West Triplet leading into an eruption of Rift. The duration of West Triplet was short, only about one half hour, with the start of Rift around the 23 minute mark. That is much shorter than I am used to seeing. Then we got a Turban Delay interval.
Grand erupted two Turban intervals later. It was an eruption that lasted over 13-1/2 minutes. Sawmill started, again, just before Grand. It appears that Sawmill is quite frequent.
Got the call to go down at Fan & Mortar. Got to see strong, intermittent activity from the High vent, with steady overflow from Gold, but nothing much came of it. It appears this year it's not unusual for the Mortar frying pans to be quite active, and for Upper Mortar to surge but not build at the end of a good cycle like this one.
The rains kept threatening during the late afternoon, but we never got more than a sprinkling or two. Finally, after the six hour mark, I decided to risk getting wet and headed out to Grand. There we got a short, strong and vigorous Turban eruption which acts as if there was a Delay interval. That was followed by a Turban interval with no overflow from Grand, which pretty much confirmed things. It ended up being two more Turban intervals before Grand started.
It was an explosive start from a pool that had small waves, but no booping. In contrast to the earlier eruption, this one was short, just over nine minutes. At the end, Turban and Vent were exceptionally strong, but we never saw any evidence that Grand even tried to fill back up.
And shortly before Grand, Sawmill started again.
