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Observations for 2022 August 06


It seems that the longer intervals due to the influence 0f Rift and West Triplet is not as strong now. I was just leaving the cabin and missed the start of a One Burst Grand this morning because it was the shorted interval of the season, just over six hours. This after a couple of intervals less than seven hours long overnight.

Crystal Spring and Belgian were fairly high, with the latter only about 5cm below its rim. From Castle saw a long Bulger major eruption, but from there saw no evidence of anything out of Bulger's hole.

Since the rains were not forecast for several hours, decided to waste an hour down at Fan & Mortar. On the way down, saw a deer wandering in the Round Spring Group, and shortly after arriving at Fan & Mortar, heard an osprey fail to harvest a fish, but did see it fly away.

The only active vent on my arrival was Angle. For the next hour it never shut down, or changed much. For the next ten minutes, there was rumbling from Upper Mortar and splashing visible from Bottom Vent. Then the Fan River Vent started. Almost immediately Gold Vent and High Vent looked really good. Over the next fifteen minutes, they died down, only to come back to life. I was pretty sure that this activity was not going to go into an eruption, but decided that if I saw any steam from Mortar's Frying Pans, that was the sign to make a call. After about half an hour, the River Vent finally shut off, and all looked like when I arrived.

Checked out East Sentinel, and looks pretty much like it did when I last checked it a few weeks ago. Caught a Daisy eruption. The interval was well under two hours, but the eruption duration was barely over three minutes (3m07s).

Later on I went out to Grand during a slight rain. Thought it was a bit early, but the rain was supposed to pick up, and this morning's interval might not last long as the shortest of the season. From Castle (which had just had a short minor eruption), I could see a blue awning set up over on the walkway near West Triplet. It completely blocked the walkway, and I had to walk under it to get over to my preferred viewing location.

Awning at Grand

I have never seen anything like this done before. It was put there by a family reunion. I overheard that they had to wait several hot hours for Grand the last time they were here. So they knew how crowded things could get, even though today it was water instead of sunlight. Fortunately, the NPS had them take it down before it became a nuisance and before Grand erupted.

That One Burst Grand eruption lasted over 12-1/2 minutes, and started out steamy. I did see several boops well before the start, but this was not otherwise a delay.

The weather cleared after a couple of hours of steady rain, and a quarter moon was visible in what looked to be clear skies. But as we walked out beyond Castle, the clouds from the north moved in and there wasn't much light (other than the usual Inn parking headlights) the rest of the wait.

Arrived to a trickle of overflow, which ended. Then about fifteen minutes after arrival, it picked up, and my twenty-five minutes, was a flood. There may have been a boop, but in any case it was a Turban Delay interval. The next two Turban eruptions were standard, with no overflow from Grand for the first, and slight overflow the second time.

It would appear shorter Delay recoveries are part of the shorter intervals. We got the eruption on the third Turban eruption. It was quite steamy, but the bright lights did illuminate the activity. West Triplet overflowed heavily during another long One Burst Eruption. By this time, it appeared that it was going to be a foggy morning.