Category: Activity Report

After the short overnight interval I thought there was a chance of another short interval. But I wasn't expecting to be in the parking lot thinking I should be heading out when Grand started. The only thing short intervals do is make it harder to get sleep. In this case, it really wasn't even worth the effort of zipping on out.

That also messed my plans, such as they were, for the day. I was expecting various waits on Grand and Beehive to be split up by an hour or two available for other things.

By the time to go out to Grand, the weather radar map showed a small cell headed this way. Sure enough, for one Turban interval we got pelted with a strong wind with lots of rain and a little bit of hail. Fortunately, the first Bulger major eruption took place before that, and during that time Bulger's Hole only filled and drained.

After the storm, we got a second Bulger major. This time the Hole did't pay around with filling and dropping,but almost immediately began bubbling. The eruption itself lasted 5 minutes, and ended a little after Bulger did. The bridge is still there, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if it lasts long.

So Grand erupted under relatively calm sunny conditions, and proceeded to give us another one burst eruption.

The weather was nice and clear with a bright moon for the next eruption. Grand had a chance for a four-Grand day, but only managed to have three intervals in just less than 24 hours. Grand had to wait for the eruption of West Triplet to finish, it appears. The Grand eruption started 2m23s after Turban. After the first couple of minutes, the steam over Grand's pool just didn't look right, even though Turban wasn't all that vigorous. The slight breeze pushed the steam away, allowing for a beautiful pair of bursts.

While waiting for Grand, saw a couple of Bulger major eruptions, but in neither case did I see any sign of even steam coming from Bulger's Hole.

After the rain last night, I expected it to be foggy, and I was right. From what I could tell in the cabin area, it was clear and cloudless, with bright stars,. Just as I approached the front of the Lodge, I heard an eruption of Old Faithful start. I couldn't seen much in all the steam. When I dropped down the hill in front of the Inn, I was in the think of the fog. Out at Grand I could barely make out the lights of the Inn.

I arrived at Grand just in time for the end of another Rift eruption. Through the fog, I heard an eruption of Riverside, but that was as the day slowly brightened. Over at Bulger there were occasional minors. When Beehive erupted, I could hear it easily, but all I could see was a thickness int he fog over Geyser Hill.

As with yesterday, it took Grand several hours before I finally recovered from Rift. This time the one burst eruption, instead of being around 11 to 12 minutes long, didn't even reach 9 minutes.

After that, it was a bit of a surprise that by 10:30 there was a noisy storm moving in. Inside the cabin there were quite a few times that the whole cabin shook, and the echoes seemed to last close to a minute. We even lost power for several minutes. The storm took 4 hours to go though, but fortunately I was able to spend it all indoors. As the time to go out to Grand approached, the rained died down and the sky began to lighten.

Expected a short interval, but got a longer one instead. Grand waited until well after the end of an eruption of West Triplet. The only real item of interest was that Churn erupted twice during the wait.

I also think that Bulger's Hole erupted during the storm. The bridge at the front of the vent hole seems narrower, and there were rocks strewn about, including one on the end of the bridge, that I didn't remember seeing there earlier today.

Got out to Grand before midnight to discover that Rift had not only erupted, but had also finished. A good sign. The sky was mostly clear, and the few clouds didn't obscure the bright moon. In the next half hour I got to see Oblong, Daisy and Castle. The last one seemed to have attracted a sizable contingent of yelling morons, but fortunately they stayed there well into the steam phase and never came over to bother me.

After about another hour, I heard Bulger erupting, and it became apparent that this was a major. I went over and found that the Hole was filing up. Unfortunately, it never erupted. As it was now time for Turban I started heading back, and caught the start of Grand.

A steamy eruption, but clear enough that seeing Vent start was easy. A disappointing eruption, it being another one of those less than 10 minute one burst eruptions.

Today started out as a continuation of yesterday. I decided to forego the middle of the night Grand eruption and instead catch up on sleep, Besides the night was supposed to be cloudy and I didn't relish a three hour wait in the dark. As it turned out, I wouldn't have had much wait at all.

Woke up around 06:00 and I was just starting to post the photos and report on yesterday when the call for an event at Fan & Mortar came in around 06:30.
So I finished up and header over to the store parking lot to continue on down basin on the bike.

I arrived to nice, consistent activity by the High and Gold Vents. Within a few minutes the Angle vent joined in, and unlike yesterday's event, the activity did not show any sign of weakening. Instead, it steadily increased until around 07:10, by which time we had the High vent erupting to about 4 meters, continuously. By the only question was how would the eruption start.

Since my phone has video capability, I shot some shaky footage of the start. It began with extended play by Upper Mortar for about 10 seconds. Just as it looked like it might die down, Lower Mortar showed water, and at almost the same time water gushed out of Fan's Main and East vents.

The conditions were ideal. Because of the overcast, the night wasn't as cold as it could have been, and the sun had been up long enough to remove any other chill, and to provide excellent lighting. There was absolutely no wind, and surprisingly, no mosquitoes. During the eruption I never needed to use my umbrella or raingear, and with the steam cloud going straight up, all of the rainbows were easily visible.

Following that, decided time to head out to Grand, just in case it pulled a short interval. A guess as to the eruption time based on overflow pretty much matched the time from the monitor. Except it turned out to be a long wait. One with Rift ending and Grand still not showing any signs of trying to erupt. When Grand did erupt, we got an eruption like yesterday, one nearly 12 minutes long.

During the wait we did see an eruption of Churn. Not sure why, as Sawmill was active. Bulger was having minor eruptions, but no major eruptions, and the people who watched it for all that time said that the hole never showed any signs of activity.

So after that, it was time to head in. Knowing that there wasn't much going on until evening (except for the possibility of Beehive), I took the opportunity to perform other chores, like take a nap.

To get to the Beehive eruption, one had to negotiate another bison gauntlet. This time the three of them were bedding down over by Little Squirt and Silver and Bronze, but just close enough to make me hesitate before quickly passing by. The Beehive eruption itself was well behaved for the first half, until the wind shifted. I tried to hunker down next to the railing under my umbrella, but after a bit I gave up and moved on. Rather than run the bison gauntlet a second time, I took the opportunity to walk around Geyser Hll.

The sky had clouded up by the to head out to the evening Grand. It was extremely windy, but I did get out there before the first shower started. Nothing too much, about ten minutes long with a little hail mixed in.

Grand erupted about 15 seconds before the delay would have officially started.As it was, it was just a short one burst, and I was able to head in while it was still a little light, and before the really heavy rain (and thunder and lightning) started.

The rock wall at Aurum may be intended to hide the monitor's wire, but it seems to instead call even more attention to itself. Surely a better job could be done here, and in several other places where the monitors and their wires are obvious. Of like at West Triplet, exposed.

Before I got checked in, I did get to see a nice Beehive from the overlook, and Castle had another minor eruption.

So when I headed out for the evening Grand eruption, the first thing I saw when I got out to the bikerack at Castle was Rift in eruption. By the time I got over there, it was obvious that West Triplet had been quiet for a bit. This gave the false hope that the end of Rift might be soon. While waiting, Sputnik was quite active, with some of the eruptions as much as 1 meter high.

About the same time it was noticed that there were a couple of bison to the north, near the boardwalk by Wave Spring. The slowly moseyed along and one of them settled down right next to the boardwalk near Shoe Spring. This did not deter visitors from using the walkway, getting close-up pictures of the bison, and in at least one case, stepping off the boardwalk to be part of a picture. The bison, fortunately, ignored them all.

When I passed through, I also noticed that the Sawmill Group had nice high water levels, and about 45 minutes later it was noticed that Penta was in a full eruption. With Rift still going, I took the opportunity to head down to see it between Turban eruptions.

That's when things got interesting. On the way back from my second visit, I saw Bulger start After about a minute or so, it had all the indications that this was going to be a major eruption. I hadn't seen any minors before that.

It was hard to tell with the lighting, but it seemed that the amount of steam in the hole had increased, and I thought I saw water. At 3 minutes into Bulger's eruption, it was obvious that the hole was full to about 15cm below the rim. The water stayed at that level for about 30 to 45 seconds, then dropped.

About 30 seconds after that, the hole refilled, and five minutes into the Bulger eruption, the water on the left side of the hole started bursting.

The eruption lasted about 2 minutes. Most of the activity was forced through the small hole that has recently formed in the sinter shelf about the hole. Though there it seemed that there were thrown a number of rocks by the milky white water. The steam made it hard to tell what was going on inside the hole itself, but there were definite small bursts in the area where I first noticed the start of the eruption. Bulger itself continued to erupt for another 45 seconds or so, with a total eruption duration of 8m07s.

In the middle of all that, Turban started and was quickly followed by an eruption of Grand. While I missed the start of Turban and Vent and the end of Rift, we did get a nice second burst and an eruption of Daisy. Seemed like everything was erupting at once.

After that, I decided to stick around the Sawmill Group, to see if there might be more Bulger related activity, and to get a duration for Penta. During the second visit to Penta, I noticed that Spasmodic actually seemed higher than before, and wondered if this might be one of those very long Penta eruptions.

After 49 minutes, which seems short, Bulger had a another major eruption. Once again, after about 1.5 minutes the hole showed water for about 30-45 seconds, drained and refilled. This time though, there was no eruption.

But there was an eruption of Churn. Again, not surprising with the long Penta duration, which at this point had been erupting for about 90 minutes. All of the features in the Sawmill Group were high. Oval was having periodic pulsations, and Sawmill was bubbling nicely in a high pool.

There was a second Churn 27 minutes later, and about 4 minutes after a kind of false start where Churn bubbled and surge up to 0.5 meter for about 15 seconds.

By that time Penta had been erupting for over two hours. The bugs were starting to get nasty, and it had been a long day, and I decided that Penta could quit on its own, so I headed in.

At Penta before Grand I got to see the naturalist who seems to be this year's Dixy. There several people sitting along the boardwalk, with their feet on the old paving stones, watching the eruption, as we have all done at some time or another. He requested that they stop doing that. Next, he went on down to Grand, and seemed to be studiously avoiding notice of the bison to the north. Finally he couldn't ignore it any longer, and went up there to keep an eye on things.

After the Grand eruption, the bison were on the move again. Since the bison were wandering near the boardwalk, he kept herding all the people there toward Sawmill, instead of just waiting calmly for them to pass. The bison just followed their usual path at the base of the hillside. The last I saw of them they went behind Spasmodic and headed into that swamp. Dixy hung around for a while, then followed them toward Geyser Hill.

I got through Pinedale with about 4 minutes to spare.

Never have really cared for coming in from the South Entrance, so decided to try something different this trip. Even though it would be longer drive, come in via US 191, go over Teton Pass and then head for Ashton via state routes in Idaho. Encountered new and different things because of that.

Only active construction was on the the whole portion of US 20 in Montana, all 12 miles of it. Even though they were striping the lanes on a Saturday afternoon, were using pilot cars and letting traffic stack up (almost a mile long line westbound.) On one stretch of 191 were replacing large culverts under the highway and routing traffic on temporary diversions.

But the real fun began when I approached downtown Pinedale. Suddenly the streets were lined with people and there were old horsedrawn wagons and other paraphernalia. On a side street I noticed what  looked like a rendevouz of mountain men. Suddenly realized that there must be a parade today. The time was 10:56, and right after I got through the gauntlet, I noticed in the rear-view mirror that a police car with flashing lights was now blocking traffic. My timing could easily have been much worse.

In Victor, Idaho, was a gathering of "classic" cars. One of the traffic lanes was coned off and all sorts of cars were parked along the curb, but I didn't see signs of any impending closure. All the rest of my way through Idaho I noticed old cars (including one that probably needed a tow) in the oncoming lanes.

Shown on the map north of Victor are a series of braided streams. Because of there is still heavy runoff from the mountains nearby, there were several miles of flooded roads. Only a few inches deep, they had posted 25mph and you just rooster tailed your way through. (I found 15mph worked better.)

The drive in this morning had further entertainments. As I passed the Mallard Creek Trailhead turnout, just north of the Upper Basin, at around 06:00, I noticed that there were a couple of motorcycles there. Interesting, as not a place you normally see motorcycles that time of day. Then I noticed why. Next the the pavement was a green pop-up tent. I guess the morning patrol had not yet passed that way.

The Grand this morning seemed like an appropriate greeting. A Grand initiated one burst that lasted 12m03s. Then Vent and Turban paused for about 14 minutes, tried and failed to restart, waiting another 7 minutes before their activity began.

After that, visited Daisy to see how bad Splendid looked. Water is no longer finding its way over from Comet, so there are no runoff channels to the north. I didn't get around to the south side as there were three bison lying down from north of Daisy to near Bonita to near the south trail.  When Daisy erupted, it got the attention of the first one. That bison got up and started moving, only to stop in the middle of Daisy's runoff. There it left a rather liquid opinion and then move over to join the other two.

Fan & Mortar had a nice event around noon-time, but this early in the interval it wasn't surprising that nothing much came of it. I went down there earlier in the day, and got to see a new Stupid Bureaucrat Trick. There was an official Suburban parked well south of the Pit of Eternal Stench, in a gravel patch surrounded by trees. I guess someone out performing their official duties wanted to be in the shade, or got the genius idea that a vehicle wouldn't be as noticeable over there.

Sat and watch an interval from one major eruption of Bulger to another. The interval was about 1h40m. Didn't see any activity, but noticed a few things. It's hard to see in the photo, but off to the left, at the edge of the sinter sheet, was a patch of steaming ground. Also, it appears the dripping from within the hole is due to water from a major seeping into the sinter, as it was strongest after the end of the majors and almost gone at the start  I would guess that it also is more in the mornings than in the afternoons when the water would tend to evaporate. So, for the first time in years, will be keeping an eye on Bulger and noting eruption times.

Finally got checked in in time to head out for the evening Grand eruption. What happened out there will be in part 2.

I learned today that if you are going to do something really, really stupid, it's best to do it on the last day of the trip when it'll just be an inconvenience instead of a catastrophe

The day started out with a damp wait at Grand. Some of the thickest geyser fog I've seen this trip, which occasionally got swept away by a strong breeze. Grand itself was steamy, hard to see.

After that I rode down to find that Fan & Mortar did erupt overnight as expected. Based on the amount of activity from the vents, I wouldn't be surprised that it happened right after I left Grand the night before. (Not that I wanted to be in that weather.

Following that did get to see a nice Beehive eruption from the overlook. An eruption whose significance became apparent later in the day.

The afternoon Grand took place just as a small but windy storm was clearing out. One Turban eruption later and we'd have had sunshine and much less wind. And we didn't even get the compensation of a second burst.

I used the lull before an Old Faithful eruption to go to the Lodge Cafeteria to get some food. I was just finishing up when the call that Beehive's Indicator had started. This was a bit of a surprise, as it was only 10 hours since the morning eruption. So I finished my meal, went back to the cabin to get a raincoat and umbrella, and sauntered over to Geyser Hill.

Where I got to see the first false Indicator in quite a while. 65 minutes of it. Beehive stopped splashing and trying at about the 35 minute mark. So now the question becomes, will Beehive have an eruption with the next Indicator eruption, making this an interesting and annoying exception, or does this mean that this morning I saw the last Beehive eruption of the summer?

Turns out that leaving Sawmill Group last night was right decision, as Penta marker was still in place when came out before dawn. Once again, water levels there were high, but I didn't stick around. About half hour later heard to load thumps of a high pool Sawmill start.

After the morning Grand eruption, headed down to Fan & Mortar for a few hours of garbage mode, although i think I arrived at the end of a minor event. At least it never looked as good during my wait as it did when I arrived.

After breakfast, there was finally a report of an event at Fan & Mortar. This was Mortar dominated, with the activity of the Fan vents never looking good, but we did get one surge from Mortar that could've grown into a full eruption.

Following that, it was about time for Grand, but Rift had also just started. When II had returned as far as Castle, I had a decision. Based on past behavior, that meant about a three hour wait, but on the other hand, I had no reason to head any further in. So decided to head over to Grand.

That proved to be the right decision, as within minutes of arrival, the pool on Grand was full with waves. Unlike so many recent eruptions, Grand initiated this one, and we got a nice two burst eruption with Rift sputter away over on the side, on a less than 7 hour interval.

Following that, the Sawmill Group was high with Sawmill quiet. Some bubbling from Penta's lower vents was enough to get me to stick around. (That I'd been prepared to stay out a few hours was a factor, too.) All the pools continued to rise, and finally we got a good, doming surge over Penta's bottom vents, but no eruption. Expected that the next good surge should be the one which started the eruption, instead looked over and saw Sawmill boiling and doming up. Time to head in.

I was starting to get ready to go out to Grand when the next call for an event at Fan & Mortar came over the radio. It was good timing, as I figured that no matter what happened, I could then go directly to Grand. As it turned out that while the surging from Lower Mortar looked promising, when Fan came back on it never really looked all that good. So it was off to Grand.

Even heading out to Fan & Mortar the sky looked ugly. At Grand I got to experience possibly the worst conditions I've ever encountered that didn't involve precipitation. While there was no rain, it was dark and there was a strong wind from the north that had to have gusts at or above 40 mph. But it only lasted about 20 minutes, and by the time Grand erupted, it was relatively calm.

That eruption started with one of the most explosive Turban starts I've seen. It suddenly and without warning threw a plume of water sideways at least 15 feet high. It was getting dark, making the steamy pool hard to see, but just based on that I figured we were about to get Grand. And I was right. The second burst was also sort of a bonus, as the first burst was nearly 11 minutes long. But thanks to the wind, which had been picking up during the first burst, it wasn't all that impressive.

The wind was picking up because another storm was moving in, but fortunately, I was back in the cabin by the time it started to get wet.

I noticed when I was riding my bike on the service road behind the Inn in order to make the previous day's posting that there was a freshly flattened tree rat on the pavement. Coming back ten minutes later, the carcass was gone. Those ravens work fast.

Like the night before, the possibility of an eruption of Grand just as it was getting dark turned into an after-midnight eruption. I arrived just as West Triplet started, and Rift joined right in a half hour later. Unlike the night before, this time it was mostly clear (just the usual clouds far to the north and south) and calm.

The predicted aurora never materialized. As the sky darkened, the area to the north seemed to remain bright, but as midnight approached, it too finally became dark, and then the eastern sky began to lighten slightly as the moon rose. There was a little light on the top of Grand's steam column during the eruption, but it really didn't help make anything more visible.

In the morning, we had yet another long interval at Grand. At least we were rewarded with the second three burst eruption in two days. Was a long pause between the second and third, so it didn't surprise me when Vent and Turban quit after.

With the next Fan & Mortar window approaching, I spent an hour down there, watching garbage, although there was some Upper Mortar rumbling with water visible down in the vent, and steaming from the Frying Pan. (It's amazing how large that vent has become. No way that water would have been visible even ten years ago.)

Grand was set up for a sunset eruption, but when West Triplet's eruption led into the start of Rift, I figured I'd be seeing it in the dark. So it was a pleasant surprise to have it start on the last possible Turban eruption, just as Rift was ending. The only drawback was that there wasn't a second burst, but the lighting during the eruption, along with a breeze out of the north, gave us full arc rainbows which ended in Sawmill on the right end.

Beehive's Indicator was announced just before the Grand eruption, and thanks to the long Indicators we've had lately, I was able to seen the entire Grand eruption, and leisurely walk all the way to the overlook at Crested Pool. Too bad the sun had already set by then.

Along the ways I noticed that the Sawmill Group was again full, and in Tardy Mode. It had been that way when I came out to Grand, but after about 20 minutes, Spasmodic shut off and the system drained. I probably should have stuck around, but getting some sleep seemed a higher priority.

The nighttime Grand eruption wait started with overcast skies and a Rift eruption. By the time Rift had quit the clouds had turned to a strong wind and some showers. But it only took a half hour for things to clear back up. When Grand did start, the moon, while dimmed by some thin clouds, was enough to illuminate a nice three burst eruption.

The Castle eruption during the wait had to be one of the more powerful it's had in a while. Or else the wind conditions really amplified the noise of the steam-phase. It was still an impressive rumble an hour after the start of the eruption.

The afternoon Grand eruption was another one of its cases of having a delay at a reasonable time, thus making sure there's another long interval.

Here's what an eruption of Old Faithful looks like when viewed from the Snowlodge. Another lost opportunity we've gotta live with for the next few decades.

The previous day's late evening Grand turned into the after-midnight Grand. It turned out to be quite nice.There was a bit of a breeze from the south, which was pushing the steam to the north. The moon had just risen, so even though only about half, it was illuminating the pool of Grand and its runoff nicely. I was able to see the waves build on the pool and clearly see the start of the eruption. A second burst would have been really pretty, but that didn't happen.

I also got to hear Beehive just before Grand. It was perfect timing, as al the noise of Rift and Percolator erupting had finally subsided, making it obvious that something was happening over on Geyser Hill.

The morning eruption turned into the noon-time eruption, thanks to a Vent delay just as West Triplet had it's early window eruption. Again the lighting was nice. As Grand's surges climbed, each one broke out of the shadow of the previous one's steam cloud, a nice effect. And again, we got a one burst so there wasn't a chance to see that happen again.

During that wait, saw one of the tallest Oblong Geyser eruptions I've ever seen. A massive surge was not just as high as the dead tree by Chromatic Pool, but appeared as high as the trees behind Oblong on Wylie Camp hill.

After Grand it appeared that Penta might try to erupt from a normal Tardy Mode, but for half an hour everything in the Sawmill Group just sitting there. When Oval Spring's pulsations didn't seem to change things, I decided it was time to leave. Penta didn't erupt, as shortly afterwards Spasmodic stopped overflowing and all the water levels dropped. Later that afternoon, Sawmill erupted.

This afternoon's Beehive eruption was a warning. After several weeks of Indicator durations around 20 minutes, this one was barely over 6, just enough time to get from the store parking lot to the Firehole river overlook. (This was my first daytime Beehive this trip from that vantage point.)

The evening was clear and pleasant, and I didn't need to bring out the nighttime gear. Grand took advantage of the early West Triplet eruption to erupt as soon as the next window became available. While waiting, I saw another Oblong eruption, this one not impressive at all.

After learning that I had made the bad choice the night before, the day settled into the fairly typical and mildly boring three Grand eruptions and one Beehive eruption. A good day to catch up on sleep and other tasks I'd been neglecting over the previous few days.

Overnight Beehive got lost, but based on the early afternoon eruption I'd guess it went during the Grand or Fan & Mortar eruptions when people were out but preoccupied.

One good thing about the day was that the Grand intervals were a little shorter. Of course that wasn't going to last.

In the middle of the night I thought 7 hours would be enough to get out to Grand but it wasn't. Once again I got to see Vent and Turban and an empty crater. As a bonus, I did get to see Rift start.

The next time I got up, it was overcast with a thunderstorm moving in. Eating breakfast during that time seemed a good idea, then it was time for a Grand wait.

I really wasn't expecting a third short interval and I was right. But we did get to see a different Penta eruption than the norm. Usually a Penta eruption starts after there's been heavy overflow from Spasmodic and a slow, steadily more vigorous eruption of Tardy. This eruption was about an hour after Sawmill and Spasmodic was just at the point of overflow, and dropping. Otherwise it was a normal eruption that lasted about an hour. During the eruption itself(another two burst) Sput A and Sputnik started blipping.

At that point it was time to head in, as the sky was getting black and the rains were coming. But as we approached Sawmill, it started erupting, lasted about 30 seconds and then quit. I've seen that before, during deep drains,but this must've been more of a post-Penta effect as the water levels weren't low enough for that.

That afternoon, after a quick but intense thundershower, saw a disinterested event at Fan & Mortar;. Heading out for the evening Grand eruption, it looked like I was going to get wet, but the heavy clouds passed both to the north and south. The southern one was close enough that we got a rainbow, but no droplets.

Once again Grand demonstrated its bimodal behavior, passing up early opportunities for an eruption to only wait until it reached the 10 hour mark. I did get to see another Penta steam-phase eruption during the wait, though. It was while I was coming in that I heard that another event was starting at Fan & Mortar. The idea of riding down all that way, then coming back disappointed an hour later didn't appeal to me, so I turned off the radio and headed in instead. That proved to be a mistake, as the event quickly built into an eruption that took place well before midnight.

Today was mostly spent recovering from yesterday.

Some of that was out at Grand, where it continued its string of long intervals. At least we got another two burst eruption out of our wait.

I was headed out to the evening Grand eruption, dressed for a wait that could be after midnight. As I approached Tilt, the call for Beehive's Indicator came over the radio, and since it was only at the 7 hour mark, I decided that would be a good place to catch the next Turban eruption and see Beehive erupt.

As it turned out a minute or so later, I saw Turban start, followed after another minute by Grand. So I slowly walked over to watch the last half of a single burst eruption. By the time I got back to Sawmill, Beehive started, so that geyser I watched as I walked back over the bridge. At least after that I could look forward to a 5 hours of sleep before the next walk.

Came out this morning and saw something new for the year: a 36 minute long Turban interval, which ended with a 7 minute long eruption. Unlike the other day, that was the only unusually long duration during the rest of Grand's interval. But four Turban eruptions after that we got another delay, this time when Vent overflowed. And that took three more Turban eruptions, so we ended up with what could have been a short interval being over 10 hours.

The eruption itself was quite nice, as the steaminess of the chilly morning was long gone. After the second burst, Grand did try for a third burst, with a short fill of the crater, but then it drained and almost immediately Vent and Turban quit.

One nice thing (the only good thing) about these recent long intervals is that they've not been one burst eruptions.

Funny how just as Beehive was getting out of its habit of erupting at the same times every day, Giantess erupts and it pushes right back into the same behavior. But these mid-afternoon Beehive eruptions are nice because we are guaranteed the opportunity of a predictable daylight eruption.

While walking up for the afternoon Beehive eruption, I saw my first up close Plume Geyser eruption of the trip. What caught my attention was that there really wasn't a gap between the second and third (of five) bursts. Between the others there was a distinct pause when water wasn't even visible in the vents, but between those two, Plume continued to surge up to about 1 to 2 meters before taking starting another burst. I don't know if this has been the normal behavior, or is a Giantess eruption effect

It was clouding up by the time I went out to Grand, but mostly sunny, but that didn't last. At one point I realized that the hot sun that had been beating down on me had been replaced by a steady breeze and thickening overcast. As the interval progressed, that overcast turned to rain. At least the rain stopped for the Grand eruption, by which time most folks had abandoned their stay. The eruption continued the trend of two bursts. This time Grand had to really fight for the second. By the time it began, Vent was blasting away and Turban was thrashing madly. And almost immediately, the rains began again, but fortunately, I made it back to the cabin before the heavy stuff hit.

Today, I was sitting on outside balcony at the Snowlodge while posting the previous day's observations, (gotta go where the wifi is…). Down below I noticed our dog owners sitting at one of the tables with umbrellas with their two hounds. A little later, I heard someone down there ask, "Are you with the Disney group?" A lodge manager was walking up to them. The head of the family said, "no", and the manager said, "those sandwiches are for them," and confiscated some items off their table, and walked away. Some people just seem to generate trouble wherever they go.

This day started out with my going from geyser to geyser at dawn. First, I got out to Grand just in time to see a two burst eruption, the first with overcast, but that cleared just before the second burst started. During that eruption, Beehive's Indicator was announced,but I failed to hear it. I did hear a second announcement after it had been erupting for 10 minutes, but assumed it had just started. So while I thought I had time to maybe even get over the Geyser Hill, Beehive ended up starting as I was riding down past the trees below Castle. I did have time to go down to the overlook, and while walking out there was rewarded with a moonbow in the eruption spray, a sight I wouldn't have seen if I had been at the overlook at the start.

Just as I had arrived back at my bike an announcement of the start of an event at Fan & Mortar was made. I knew I would hate myself if I didn't go down and it did erupt, so north on the bike I went. It was a typical event, and when Fan's vents came back on, it quickly became apparent that the water levels weren't high enough. So back in for a nap I went.

There was a second event a few hours later, but it pretty much followed the same path as the earlier event. The only good thing that could be said about these two events is that they were far enough from the Grand eruptions that I didn't have to worry about interference. The midday Grand was a long interval, but did result in a nice two burst eruption.

The final event of the day started with a call of some sort of pause. The reporter wasn't quite sure if Gold had splashed, but in any event, the River vent was off and Main vent was splashing. Mortar's Bottom vent only splashed a bit during that pause, and then the vents reactivated. (Another opinion is that this was just a short, very poor cycle.) Only to have all the vents shut down again, and this time Bottom began an eruption to accompany vigorous Main vent activity.

This continued for quite a while, and when Fan's vents finally reactivated, they didn't take any time getting started, but almost immediately started erupting vigorously and continuously. This activity slowly, almost excruciatingly, built to the point where Fan's High vent was going to 15 feet, with the Gold vent not much smaller. The Angle vent seemed to be alternating between water and steam. Finally, we started to see steaming from Mortar's Frying Pan and the little vent on the back of Lower Mortar's "back armrest." The conditions were ideal, as most of the breeze was away from us, and the sun still high enough to provide perfect backlighting.

When the eruption finally began, it was one of the tallest and most powerful that I can remember. Most eruptions are dominated by one or the other geyser, but in this case both were huge. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had measured Upper Mortar's column at 70 feet. Fan's first surges went a good 10 yards beyond the walkway toward the Pit of Eternal Stench. The activity of the Mortar vents seemed to last a lot longer than it had in the previous eruption, and this time I remember actually seeing Fan's East vent during much of the first active phase.

The breeze did push some of the eruption into the walkway, and with the low sun, it was easy to get a huge, full circle rainbow. Outside the drizzle zone, a 240° double rainbow was obvious when standing north of Spiteful Geyser. Some of the activity of Fan in the subsequent phases was impressive too.

After than, it was time for another Grand eruption, and once again it was a long wait. There was overcast (some of it might have been smoke from Idaho fires), but it broke enough to illuminate the post-midnight two burst Grand eruption.

Even after all these years of watching Grand, it is still capable of doing something new or different. This morning was one of those times.

As Grand's pool refills, and until about the time of first overflow, it is not unusual for Turban eruptions to have long durations, up to 9 or 10 minutes. But after that, anything over 6 minutes is unusual. This morning, several hours after the first overflow, I saw an eruption that lasted 7m21s. The next lasted 6m43s, and three of the next seven Turban eruptions were over 6 minutes long. The only short eruption came with a short Vent overflow, leading to a 5 Turban delay. So nothing really spectacular, but it does show that the system might be changing in other ways. Only keeping an eye on it these next few days and weeks will tell.

The evening eruption was back to more typical behavior, the only similarity was that both intervals were over 10 hours. The eruption itself took place in a dead calm after we'd had a moderately strong breeze all afternoon. As such, there was a beautiful base surge of steam rolling across the platform as the eruption started. It's been a long time since I'd experienced one of these, and forgotten that it also means that the bench areas around the runoff channels have a good chance of getting rained on. Which is exactly what happened. Not much, but enough to scatter the crowd to farther ends of the benches.

Mid afternoon Beehive finally erupted, its longest interval in quite a while thanks to Giantess' eruption.

That was also the time that the circus came to town. The head clown was here to see Old Faithful and visit the Inn, but also went down with his entourage to the overlook across from Beehive and watched the eruption. And unlike a visit when the RIngmaster showed up a few months ago, security wasn't tight and there was no change in access.

Today also had a couple of events down at Fan & Mortar, but nothing came of either one.

The night had an adventure of a different sort. When I got back to my cabin, there were a couple of dogs tied to a truck which were barking. Not only that, but it looked like they had food dishes, too. (Maybe just water). In any case, I realized it was a situation that needed complaining,and so I went to the front desk. They were busy, with only one clerk because there was a medical emergency; a 66 year old woman had fell and hit her head. I finally got to make my complaint and went back to the cabin. The barking continued, and so I called the rangers to make another complaint. The cabin next to the dogs was all lit up, with the windows wide open. I thought the medical might explain the seemingly abandoned cabin, but that turned out to be wrong. Coming back from the restroom just before midnight I heard a family of three walking over from the Inn. I waited at my cabin, and sure enough, it was them.. I will complain even more if they are still here tomorrow.