[Geysers] RE: GIANT 6 August at 0850

[Paul Strasser]

For the third year in a row, Giant erupts on our last full day in the Park
during our two-week stay.  We've left in July or August, on Sunday or Monday
or Tuesday.  

Like Tara said.  This is getting spooky.  

After watching Giant closely for the preceding two weeks and seeing no
change in its overall behavior (in fact, seeing a drop in power in the last
few days) since... well, since at least May, I told Ralph on Friday PM that
Giant "sucked."  It was currently in a Marathon that had started about 0400
and was still chugging along nicely.  The primary time for decent hot
periods was the first post-Marathon hot period, which had been occurring
between 3 and 4.5 hours after the end of the marathon.  Suzanne and I had
seen plenty of them, and if anything they were getting weaker.  

When Steve R called "water rising in Mastiff" around 0836 I told Suzanne,
who was just finishing a shower.  I then called Steve on the radio and asked
a simple question - was the platform wet or dry?  I assumed that this
Mastiff rise would presage a follow-up hot period to the post-marathon event
that had probably occurred a few hours earlier.  Steve responded, "The
platform is dry.  This is the recovery hot period."  I tried to do some
basic calculations of Marathons, quiet periods, etc.

At that moment the race was on for Suzanne and me.  I still don't know what
compelled us to dress and run so quickly - even a slightly longer time
between end of Marathon and First Hot Period was no big deal.  And Steve's
updates every minute were essentially duplicates of every other longish hot
period we'd seen in the previous 14 days.  "One Minute -- Mastiff was one to
two feet."

We were at our bikes and pedaling furiously by the four minute mark, and
Steve's voice retained that humdrum tone that all of us had developed while
calling Giant hot periods.

"Four minutes in, Mastiff was flat to three feet in the last minute."

As I biked at full tilt, I really wondered what the hell I was doing.  As
any gazer who was near me during our two-week visit, I had had a bit of a
cough - in the same way that the Titanic had a bit of a leak.  And I started
coughing yet again. Maybe, I mused, there would be a decent restart, or even
one of those occasional 15-minute hot periods that seemed to only occur on
the post-Marathon events.

Steve's calls continued.  "Six minutes, Mastiff is flat to three feet."

I thought about how the Memorial Day eruption of 2004 occurred 7 min 34 sec
after the start of the hot period, and if it happened again I would be in
sight of the platform.  

"Seven minutes, Mastiff was flat to three feet."  Yada yada.  

I saw Daisy i.e. and hadn't heard a call of its eruption, so on my radio
reported it.

"MASTIFF IS TO THE HEIGHT OF THE CONE!!!!!!!"

What??  My first thought, which lasted about two seconds, was some yahoo was
interfering with Steve's hot period call.  I then saw Mastiff.  To the
height of the cone. 

It really was that fast.  Nothing for seven point whatever minutes, just
like all the other hot periods we'd seen.  Then the switch was thrown.  I
heard screams from the few people on the platform, running about crazily.
Mastiff was 10, 20 feet high.  Suzanne and I dropped our bikes and legally
approached the platform.  We ran hither and yon (hither won out, btw) trying
to figure out where to stand because the wind direction was basically
towards the platform.  Shouted updates were radioed as people looked at each
other in gazes of utter bewilderment.  I saw Suzanne run towards the Gip and
it seemed the wind was shifting and perhaps we could see something backlit.
Sure enough, we could.  Mastiff was not erupting.  In fact, its crater
appeared empty.  But Catfish was roaring to 40-50 feet instead and Giant was
sloshing huge surges of water from its cone.  I called out this change and
got in a position where Giant would be backlit.  Two, three huge surges from
Giant and it erupted.

At first, it was slightly backlit as it rose, but its massive water and
steam column became basically opaque.  I was the only person stupid enough
to be near the platform and watched it essentially straight up and
improbably wide. The water fell from Way Up There and drenched the monkey
cage, and the jets were getting even higher.  The falling water came closer
and closer... whoops.  A bit of a shower there - the first true Giant shower
of my life.  Suzanne, who was already rather soggy from her leap from the
shower in our room, decided that a little extra water would make little
difference, so she purposefully ran through the falling sheets of water.
She looked at me with an expression that I shared.  It wasn't so much joy
as... "What????"

Meanwhile, other gazers were heading to Giant.  Tara Cross made a decision
that I must concede I wouldn't have had the sense to make.  She was racing
up towards Castle on her bike and made the instantaneous calculation that
she wouldn't get into view of Giant from the bike path in time to see the
start, so she did the ten-meter bicycle fling at Castle (making a fine
clanging sound when it hit the trashcan) and ran along the boardwalk to see
Giant's rise.  Her description of what she saw was, to say the least,
incredibly impressive.

There was the usual pandemonium on the boardwalk as Giant entered its basic
160 ft+ stage, its backlit steam cloud was both stupendous and gorgeous.  We
shared stories, hugs, and high-fives with all who were there.  

Those who were watching Giant with the most intensity for the past few
months are certain to agree - there was absolutely nothing in the prior two
weeks to indicate that an eruption was impending.  In fact, the power of the
hot periods in the days prior to the eruption was weaker than the previous
week, with little surging in Mastiff greater than 2-3 feet. (Aha, one might
say.  That shows Giant was not using a lot of energy and was saving it up
for the eruption!  But that sort of comment indicates that ANY change is a
good thing - that basically an impending Giant eruption is a non-falsifiable
hypothesis.)  

However, we all were in agreement that Giant COULD erupt from the general
level of activity we'd seen. There was simply no way of knowing exactly
when.  I truly expected Giant to just keep doing the same thing it had been
doing for days-weeks-months until something changed.

By the way, Suzanne and I have not yet determined when we will spend our two
weeks in Yellowstone in 2006.  When we do we'll let you know - at least
we'll tell you when we're leaving the park...

Paul Strasser