[Geysers] Short report

[Stephen J. Eide]

>From Stephen Eide

I managed to spend the 20th and 21st in the park with an old friend,
I've been trying to get him to come to the park with me for a couple of
years.  I'd give you the times for the geysers we saw, but in unpacking
I managed to misplace my notebook.  We wandered around the lower basin
for an hour pr two the morning of the 20th so of course Beehive was ie
when we arrived in the upper basin at about 1030 (if I remember
correctly).  I seem to remember Riverside ie at 1330, and catching
Grand, Lion, Castle, and Daisy at basicly normal intervals.  Grotto was
ie at 1215 and was still ie at 1330 so it likely was in marathon.  We
saw a weak event cycle at Fan and Mortar around 1400.  I thought I saw
water in main vent once from the bridge, but nothing after that and it
quickly faded out.

The morning of the 21st we visited Norris.  We caught a series of six
eruptions of Constant starting at about 0930.  In the back basin we saw
Vixen from near Veterian, Pearl was erupting with clear water in the
pool, I did not see the usual opalescence in the water.  Echinus was in
overflow but did nothing for the 15 minutes we waited on it.  Steamboat
was having duals to about tree height when we first saw it, then changed
to south function as we left.

In the River group Azure was in overflow with occasional palpitations
with waves every minute or two and one boil to about one foot.  There
were two holes below Azure that appeared to have erupted or overflowed
before we arrived.  Both are between Azure and the river, one has a
runoff channel with fresh sinter into the run off channel for Azure, the
other has a run off channel with fresh sinter that runs into another
hole down the hill.  We waited a while as the water in the two vents
gradually rose, then decided we had time to visit the mud pots.  When we
returned both had either erupted or overflowed, the run off channels
were wet and slightly warm.

Castle must have had a minor overnight the morning of the 21st as the
predicted afternoon eruption had not happened by an hour after the
predicted time.

I do have a question; the last few times I have been in the river group
in the last two months Mound has usually done only a weak boil to 2-3
feet for most eruptions.  One cycle the boil barely made it to one
foot.  Finally on the 21st I saw one boil to about six feet for about a
second before returning to the 2-3 foot boil.  I thought Mound had
higher eruptions than this.  Is the recent activity just the low
eruptions, or was I just unluckly?

Stephen Eide