Just after midnight on perhaps the first clear night of this visit. The moon was at last quarter, so there was plenty of light for a walk from the cabins out to Grand via Geyser Hill. Haven't done that in years. No need for bear bells because the walkway between Lion and Liberty is so noisy. Once we got onto the plastic walkway, we could feel the ice starting to form.
Probably arrived during a Turban Delay eruption. The next Turban eruption had no overflow, and the subsequent one was strong, but short. Grand finally erupted on the fourth Turban eruption after we arrived. During our wait, we did get to hear a full eruption of West Triplet, but no followup from Rift.
The Grand eruption was steamy, but without wind, so occasionally we could see the water column backlit by the moon. Finally decided to try illuminating it, and again, because of the wind, there wasn't much success from a variety of positions. By then the ice was forming on the benches along with the walkway.
The morning was spent taking care of various tasks in anticipation of another wait at Fan & Mortar starting tomorrow. Did arrive back in the area to find Grand hadn't erupted in the afternoon, so attempted to get out there. I got to see the start of the One Burst Grand from just below Crested Pool.
Went out to the sunset Grand with the assumption that it could erupt after dark. Saw Turban erupting as I was tying up the bike at Castle, so I know that the next interval was more than long enough to be a Turban Delay Interval. Percolator and Sput D were active, so I wasn't surprised when West Triplet started right after. But it only splashed for a few seconds, then receded back into the vent, and out of sight, leaving a high water mark.
It was forty minutes later that West Triplet started again, and this time continued. It took nearly four minutes to finally reach overflow. Midway through this eruption, two intervals after the Turban Delay eruption, there was another strong attempt at Grand erupting. It was getting dark, but still possible to see the pool was full and probably having waves.
Then Rift started, and Turban started having a series of eruptions that got shorter in duration and interval as the night progressed. Sometimes it looked like Grand's pool was steamier and possibly full. Most of the Turban eruptions started out weak but a few started strong, but most durations were just over three minutes. The intervals were getting down below 16 minutes long.
Then, shortly before midnight, and 4-1/2 hours after the Turban Delay Interval, there was a Turban interval of less than 14 minutes, and the eruption lasted just barely over two minutes. Around this time I checked Belgian Pool and Crystal, which were both full, with Slurp in full wet mode and water running down the runoff channel.
The next Turban was almost as poor, but finally we got a interval that lasted well over 17 minutes and Grand finally erupted. The moon, less than a quarter, was lighting the top of the water column, making backlighted viewing easy. But the eruption lasted only 9-1/2 minutes, and then, Vent & Turban quit.
This Grand interval was approaching eleven hours. A few weeks ago, the data logger reported that there was an interval well over eleven hours under similar nighttime circumstances. At the time, I suspected it was a double with the middle one missed. Looks like it was probably a real interval.