Observations for 2021 August 11


It was a good day to visit Norris. Arrived several hours later than would have if we were expecting a New Crater/Steamboat eruption. There were plenty of spaces, and we didn't bother with the car cover.

Emerald was well below overflow, with what little water going down the runoff coming from the sputs in the trees.

Spent a half hour on the platform. It looked like New Crater/Steamboat had erupted about three days earlier (and not 33) with water just coming back into the system. Were some impressive vertical jets from North Vent, but nothing from the South Vent. The dampness in its runoff channel seemed to be coming from somwhere in the channel, as it was obvious that next to the vent, the channel was dry.

Cistern was just at overflow, with water only coming over parts of the rim.

Watched Crater Spring for a while. Just strong boiling back in the vent area, and some splashing in the side vent. Then it was on around the rest of the Back Basin. Saw frequent activity in Orby, and caught several eruptions of Vixen. Or it could have been just one long eruption with some pauses. After the last eruption, the vent drained, and did not have the gurgling sounds of between previous eruptions.

Back in the Upper Basin just in time for the ending of a recovery event at Fan & Mortar. I was hoping it would go directly into continuous Angle mode, as that seems to be better than seeing Bottom Vent erupt for half an hour.

After a typical One Burst Grand eruption, returned to the cabin to prepare something to eat, only to have to head out to Geyser Hill because Giantess had started. Arrived there just as the thumping was dying down.

After about 20 minutes of the preliminary activity, there was a short pause before water jetting bgan again. For the next couple of hours, this unimpressive activity continued. I decided to walk around the rest of Geyser Hill to see if anything else of interest was triggered. Nothing much, but as I approached Anemone from the north, I noted that Giantess' jetting was becoming more frequent.

It quickly turned into fairly weak, continuous jetting, not much stronger than Castle, and not as loud. It also didn't last very long before there were water jets visible. Probably the worst Giantess eruption I've seen since 1983 when it was having the Aborted type, where the activity quit after a few hours.

Instead of sticking around (the boardwalk was jammed with GeyserGamers and hangers-on and tourons), I decided to see a sunset Grand. The Sawmill Group was fairly high. While Belgian was down several centimeters, and Crystal not overflowing, Slurp was quiet. The first time I've seen that in a while. Spasmodic was maybe 30cm below overflow, and water was easily visible in Sawmill. Sawmill started about 15 minutes later.

Right at sunset, Grand was in the middle of a Turban Delay when it booped a couple of times. It took several minutes before Turban started, and by that time the sun was completely set. I turned away, only to be surprised 1-1/2 minutes into Turban to have Grand start. Like the afternoon, it was otherwise a typical One Burst Grand.