[Geysers] Geyser report: Other UGB activity 9/25-10/10

[Graham Meech]

I think I saw more Grand eruptions this trip than any other one before, a
total of 22.  At one point I saw 5 in a row courtesy of a long interval
overnight while I slept.  My burst count was not very high (10x1 burst, 9x2
burst, 3x3 burst for an average of 1.7).  15% were Grand starts, 32% had
Turban and vent continuing while the remainder quit.  I only saw a couple of
Grand eruptions where the intervals were way outside the windows (9h 20m and
9h 46m) but most eruptions fell in the predicted 6h 20m - 8h 20m range.
Even the long intervals fell well within the usual 4 hour prediction window.
I only saw one Turban delay (31m) which lead to a D0G2Q so there really
wasn't a delay for Grand.  The next day there was a long second burst (~2m)
and Grand still had enough energy for a third burst (T3*Q).  West Triplet
seemed to delay Grand by 1-2 hours if it started during Grand's window which
enabled me to get some food and do the bathroom run a few times without
missing Grand!

 

Bulger majors and Uncertain were seen or called on the radio quite often and
Oval Spring had several eruptions from a full pool.  Most were 3-4' and
lasted a minute or two but I saw one splash big splash which had to be 6'
high.

 

Beehive continued its regular behavior and 'predictions' of 14-16 hours
worked fairly well.  Most of the time when I have been in the park I have
stayed at the OF Lodge Cabins and walked out over Geyser Hill early each
morning by Beehive.  By now I had expected to have come up on Geyser Hill at
least once over the years and seen the indicator going but it had never
happened to me before.  This year, staying in the Inn, I went down the bike
path every day except my last one (10/10).  That morning I was slow getting
up and decided to walk out over Geyser Hill and check Beehive since it had
erupted at 1457 the previous day.  So this trip 100% of the time I did my
early walk over Geyser Hill I found Beehive Indicator in eruption (0513ie).
Beehive followed at 0533.  So next year I will be expecting the indicator to
be going every time I walk over Geyser Hill early in the morning!  I think
this is the first time I have been right by Beehive when there has been no
wind at all, it was completely calm and made me keep on my toes as the steam
and spray drifted around the cone pushing slowly to one side of the
boardwalk, then to the other.  It was wonderful to hear the water all
falling around the cone and feel the wind generated by Beehives eruption
striking my face, it created quite a breeze of its own.

 

Plume erupted 1810 on 9/30 and was seen again at 1323 on 10/1 but there were
no other times noted in the log book and it had filled with water close to
the rim later in my trip.  I did not notice any other strange behavior on
Geyser Hill at this time.  The only potentially related item was that the
geyser in the Spew/Spume crater was erupting on 9/28.

 

Oblong was nice to me on the last day of my trip giving me a really thumpy
eruption.  Oblongs intervals were either about 4 hours or 'a lot longer'.
One of the eruptions with good sunlight and wind direction had water spiking
up over the hill tree line seen standing by the Oblong sign (yes Kitt that's
the one you saw from a distance, a great eruption).

 

'Solstice' was in eruption most of the time but it did pause sometimes.  On
10/9 it would switch between erupting continuously for 40 minutes to being
on for 20 seconds and off for 2 minutes.  It would continue this behavior
for about 30 minutes and then turn back on continuously again.  It will be
interesting to hear what it does for the rest of the year.

 

I saw several Rocket Majors and heard some others called on the radio.  They
were 1h 15m to 1h 45m after the Grotto starts.  I saw one Grotto start
without Grotto Fountain - this occurred after South Grotto Fountain had been
erupting and splashing a lot during the preceding hour.

 

Riverside continued to be around 6 hours or 6h 40m.  Overflow looked like it
was starting 90m to 2h before the eruptions but I didn't watch it that
closely to be sure.

 

That's it for now.

 

Graham.

 

 

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