Decided to check on the status of Grand in order to try and figure out what happened over night. Around 07:00 saw that Grand's crater was empty with a vigorous Turban eruption in progress. Nothing from Vent, but West Triplet was completely dry and Percolator was splashing away. I put the eruption at at least two to two-and-a-half hours earlier.
Spent about an hour at Lion trying to catch the first of a series, but without success. Left with the intention of heading out to Grand based on the NPS prediction putting the eruption much earlier than my estimate. As I passed Heart Spring, I saw Beehive's Indicator in full eruption. So stuck around for a nice mid-morning eruption. Too late for rainbows, but there was no wind so the eruption did not get any part of the walkway wet and quite tall. Got back to the cabin just in time to hear a radio report of Grand in eruption, so no reason to head back out.
Shortly after that there was some entertaining radio traffic. It seems there was a family hanging around the boardwalk at Old Faithful in front of the Lodge with several dogs off leash. They were told that's not acceptable, by visitors and a Lodge employee. The response was that the dogs were well trained and didn't need leashes. So the employee contacted NPS Law Enforcement. It took them a while to arrive, and by that time the family could not be found. About fifteen minutes the family reappeared at the porch at the Lodge, and this time NPS-LE was there in a timely manner.
Within a few minutes came a radio call that there was "one being detained." Later, as the woman from British Columbia was being transported to Mammoth to her new accomodations I heard that she was charged with "interference". I thought I also heard at least one other person received a "mandatory appearance", but not for what. I'm hoping there's video posted on YouTube of this, to see how something can escalate so quickly. Also, this has a good chance of being her last visit to the US.
Finally did go out at around the four hour mark in order to check on the time of Grand's first overflow, and to hang around the Sawmill area. Sawmill was in eruption and a Deep Drain was in progress. It stopped shortly after I arrived, then a few minutes later erupted for about ten minutes. I never saw any splashing or heard any noise from Uncertain the whole time I was out there.
At Grand Percolator was in eruption, and Grand was well below overflow. The first overflow finally occurred at 4h53m, which is definitely longer than what's been seen. Percolator was in eruption for the whole hour I was out there, which is also different from what I've seen the last few years. And I saw a few seconds of splashing from Sput D at around the time of the first overflow.
While out there, I got to listen in on another person who received a complimentary trip to the Mammoth detention facility. This started as a satellite text report from the Fairy Falls parking area of a "road rage" resulting in one person pulling another from a car. Once again, when Law Enforcement arrived, they wasted little time in detaining someone. I may need to revive my logging of radio calls and posting them that I did a few years ago.
I figured it would be a long interval at Grand, but after missing one eruption I wasn't going to miss two in a row. Saw Turban from the bikerack, and then West Triplet in eruption as I walked toward Crested. I saw the West Triplet eruption end 24 minutes later, and then Rift start four minutes after that. It seemed like it took a long time for the Rift runoff to reach the boardwalk.
The Rift eruption lasted almost two hours, during which time Grand showed no signs of even trying to erupt. This state of affairs continued for another hour, until finally the intervals and durations started to get shorter. At the eleven hour mark in the Grand eruption interval Turban finally had a strong start to an eruption, but even then it took nearly a minute for Grand to join in.
The burst lasted just under 8-1/2 minutes and the second was just under a minute long. The whole eruption lasted just over ten minutes, and Vent & Turban quit. During the whole wait Percolator was in eruption, with some occasional activity by Sput D.
2025-Aug-19 : 21:51:56 T2Q 21:51:08 Turban -0m48s 21:51:56 B1 --- d=08m24s 21:54:10 Vent 2m14s 22:00:20 P1 8m24s d=40s 22:01:00 B2 9m04s d=56s 22:01:56 P2 10m00s 22:02:53 V&T Quit 10m57s ΣB=09m20s ΣD=10m00s * * * * * 14:52:52 d=05m32s 15:16:31 Int: 23m39s d=03m58s 15:33:32 Int: 17m01s d=03m46s 15:43: Grand 1st Ovfl 4h53m 15:51:32 Int: 18m00s d=30m50s * * * * * 17:35:47ie 17:38:02ie West Triplet d=26m19s 17:54:21 Int: 18m34s d=04m18s 18:06:10 Rift d=1h57m13s 18:14:53 Int: 20m32s d=03m57s 18:34:04 Int: 19m11s d=03m55s 18:52:57 Int: 18m53s d=03m30s 19:11:01 Int: 18m04s d=03m39s 19:29:39 Int: 18m38s d=03m37s 19:49:12 Int: 19m33s d=03m29s 20:08:03 Int: 18m51s d=03m43s 20:24:47 Int: 16m44s d=03m02s 20:42:43 Int: 17m56s d=03m40s 21:00:27 Int: 17m44s d=03m29s 21:18:06 Int: 17m39s d=03m15s 21:34:11 Int: 16m05s d=02m54s Turban: 16m57s
