[Geysers] June3-5

[MA Bellingham]

I phoned in the Pink Cone on Monday since I saw nary a gazer nor gazer car
in the parking lot. It was 0902 fairly steady water, not ns but not near end
either!  Silex was clear and blue at 830 that morning.   

The storm hit and I took my visitors on a lower loop tour. The flurry
brought out snowplows on Craig Pass. 

MA Bellingham

-----Original Message-----
From: geysers-bounces at wwc.edu [mailto:geysers-bounces at wwc.edu] On Behalf Of
Stephen J. Eide
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 1:55 PM
To: geysers at wwc.edu
Subject: [Geysers] June3-5

Greetings and Salutations.

My daughter Michelle and I visited Yellowstone from the third to the
morning of the sixth, however the only thing we saw on the sixth was
rain and snow before we left early.  I will ignore the major geysers as
Scott and others have already reported them, with the possible exception
of Beehive.  Scott noted earlier a late Beehive time (VR) in the logbook
and discounted it.  I'm not sure that's a good idea, but I have no real
proof.  However, on the fifth after a 0726 (I think, I forgot to write
it down) Beehive I was on the hill prior to sunset.  The west bubbler
was ie at about 2000, I saw the steam from it from over by Old Faithful
and went to look at it.  Beehive was very wet with many splashes in the
next hour and a half, some 2-4 feet over the cone and several feet out
from Beehive.  On the 6th the log shows a morning eruption of Beehive
just after 0800.  Seeing Beehive before it was completely dark, I can't
believe it waited eleven hours to erupt.  It may be that Beehive is
doing about 10-15 hour intervals and we are missing the night
eruptions.  O, Ralph, please hurry, we need the download data!!  I miss
your information.

Michelle and I appeared to be very good at showing up at Great Fountain
after the eruption.  For 6-3 G.F. appeared to go before 0600.  On the
4th it erupted before 0730 and again sometime between 1530 and 1700.  We
did finally catch it at 1600 on the 5th after one of the roving rangers
saw it was in overflow at 1448, told the visitors center who radioed the
info to the upper basin.  Many thanks to the them for the kind report.
Then Grand was very kind and erupted on the next Turban so one and all
had time to see it and see Great Fountain.

I did catch three consecutive Pink Cones, 6-3 @ 1932, 6-4 @ 1621, and
6-5 @ 1253 giving intervals of 20 hours 49 minutes and 20 hours 32
minutes.  On 6-6 there is a VR of Pink Cone in the log book with a time
of 0902 or 0907, I can't read my own writing.  This may be an IE, I
drove by at 1000 and the eruption was over, Pink Cone was just steaming
gently with no force to the steam.  This last interval would be about 20
hours or perhaps less if the report was an i.e.

Dilemma was frequent.  I saw it all three times I drove by on 6-3 and on
6-4 I sat on the group for several hours waiting for Pink Cone.  The
intervals for Dilemma were 3 to 8+ minutes.  I have several longer
intervals but I was up by Bead at those times and it is likely I missed
Dilemma.  When I just stood at Pink Cone and watched, I did not have an
interval longer than eight minutes.  The eruptions were short, less than
a minute with heights from a few inches to about a foot and a half.

On 6-4 I did look for and record the bubblers on Pink Cone.  The first
bubbler with water was the small hole on the right, about two inches
above the runoff by the road and below the right side of the Pink Cone
sign.  It had water in it at 1348 and started overflowing a few minutes
later.  The crack just above the runoff and almost below the left side
of the pink cone sign started leaking a few minutes later.  That time is
not exact, the runoff was hard to see until the sun came out and I could
look for reflections off the water.  There is a second hole on the right
side about six inches above the first bubbler, it had water in it at
about 1450 and very slight overflow at about 1600.  Pink Cone started at
1621.  This gives a time from first bubbler to eruption of two hours,
thirty-three minutes.  Can anyone tell me, is this time span similar to
the last few years?

Also on 6-4 I have several Bead intervals in the 29-31 range and a set
of four Box eruptions, the intervals were 19, 18, then 32 minutes.  Pink
erupted on 6-4 at 1401

At West Thumb Ledge Spring is erupting with quite a large overflow that
is washing a big area.  It looks like a little Oblong.  The two
eruptions I saw were a single burst of about 2 feet with little
overflow, then I missed an eruption but from the lake side I saw a
significant runoff come down the hill, so I went up and caught the next
eruption which had a large overflow and four bursts of 2-4 feet.  The
eruption is like Solitary or Cauliflower.  The double interval was 47
minutes.  I thought that Surging Spring was rising with Ledge prior to
Ledge's eruption, but that is based on only two "rises" of Ledge.  The
vent above (on the other side of the boardwalk) from Twin Geysers was a
steam vent when I visited on 6-4.  Over the last few years I have only
seen it as a perpetual spouter.  The upper terrace at West Thumb
continues to look hotter and dryer that several years back.  Lakeshore
is underwater.

In Biscuit Basin Mustard had intervals of 5-9 minutes (on 5-3-05 I had
two intervals of 7 and 8 minutes) and Jewel was having intervals of 7-9
minutes (on 5-3-05 I had two intervals of 8 and 9 minutes).  From a
distance I saw one of the Silver Globe complex erupt to about 10 feet,
but I can't tell you what.

In Norris on 6-3 Steamboat was still just steam, no water was seen at
all.  Cistern was about five feet below overflow.  Vixen was not seen,
Pearl is very active (and still a tan color).  The vents to the left of
the old Pork Chop viewpoint now have water, and the vent on the left
closest to Pearl is now turning the same tan color as Pearl.  Pork Chop
is Opalescent and constantly boiling, the runoff has made a cute little
"milk lake" by the new boardwalk.  The spring on the right side of Pork
Chop (north side I think) is clear and appears to be acting as an
intermittant spring.  I saw two of the vents between Orbicular and the
new boardwalk erupt, one to about a foot and the other with muddy water
to about three feet.  I saw the same two vents active the first week of
May this year.  I did not see Constant or Whirligig or any of the
geysers in that area of the porcelain basin.  .  When I visited the
first week in May I had the same lack of activity to report from this
area.

In the River Group I saw nothing new.  The mud pots are great.  One of
the two holes below Azure was in overflow with occasional "bumping" but
no eruption.  The second hole in that area rose to barely overflow while
I watched it, but then just dropped back after a second or two with no
eruption and almost no overflow.  However there does appear to be a
splash zone around the vent and it does look like it can erupt.  It has
a clear runoff channel with fresh sinter so I appears to do more than I
saw at least some of the time.  I saw a few eruptions of Mound, somewhat
higher that what I usually saw last year.  I saw no other eruptions from
any feature, Azure was in overflow while I was there.

Plume was working on its third (or fourth?) day of dormancy as Michelle
and I left on 6-6-05.

Stephen Eide

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