[Geysers] Geyser Report 11/3/05 (Stephens)

[lynn stephens]

THIS MESSAGE IS FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF THE READERS OF THIS LISTSERV.  ANY OTHER USE IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM THE AUTHOR.

17:05 MST 11/3/05

Today was definitely a "winter day" of geyser gazing.  The wind blew and snow came down from the sky most of the day, except for about two hours between 2 and 4.  The east and south entrances are closed.  Snow tires were required/advised on the other roads, so there were almost no visitors here today.  There were two people at the 16:30 eruption of Old Faithful, and no visitors at the daylight eruption of Grand.

The "winter" logbook has typed in names for Old Faithful, aurum, Beehive, Castle, Daisy, Grand, Lion, Little Cub, Plate, Plume, Riverside, and then 5 blank lines to enter other geysers.

Entries in the logbook so far today include:

6 eruptions of Old Faithful

Two eruptions of Aurum (12:42, 16:17)

No entry for Beehive (the cone was not steaming, not even a single wisp when I got out at 7 am.  By noon the cone had started steaming and Beehive had started splashing.)

Castle major at 15:55.  (One of the signs of winter geyser gazing for me is that I go out to wait for Castle, then wait until it goes into steam phase, enjoy watching the water cascading down the sides of the cone and listening to the steam phase.  I did take a couple photos of the icicles hanging on the side of the cone.)

No entries for Daisy.

Grand's daylight eruption was at 11:15, T2Q, d = 10m28s.  Steve Eide and I were there for the entire eruption; Joanne Kearney made it over for part of the first burst and got to see the second burst.

Lion had a series of 4 major eruptions today.  The initial was at 08:34, we missed the one at about 10am, then 11:22ie, and one at 12:45 that had a duration just over 3 minutes.

No entries for Little Cub.  I watched Geyser Hill for 75 minutes around noon and didn't see an eruption.

No entries for Plate.

No entries for Plume, which is probably dormant based on lack of observations and water in the crater.

No entries for Riverside.

There are entries for 5 other geysers:

I saw Artemisia 09:09ie this morning before the snow got too thick to see that end of the basin from Grand.

"Solstice" was active while I was waiting for Grand from about 8:30 on.

Sawmill was not ie at 08:40.  It waited until 10:17 to start an eruption and was still ie at 11:40.  When I went out to Castle at 15:30 it was in eruption.  That eruption ended at 16:01.

Grotto was not ie while we were at Grand this morning.  It was ie at 16:13.

West Triplet started an eruption at 11:34.

Steve Eide reported that Great Fountain was not in overflow when he drove in from West Yellowstone this morning.  Steve will be filing a report on his observations on "Improbable/PLH" next week.  It was having minor eruptions today, but no majors were seen.

That's it for geyser news.

Weather--Snow, snow, and more snow in the forecast.

Wildlife--The geese were sharing the runoff channel from Myraid Group as a feeding ground with three mallard ducks this morning.  However, the 6 geese weren't sharing the pond with the ducks this afternoon.  There have been sizeable flocks of geese flying high in the sky heading south the past few days.  There was a bison up near Daisy this morning, but I haven't seen any elk in the basin.

I'm still planning to stay until Sunday as long as the road to West Yellowstone is still open to visitors.  

Lynn Stephens
 
 
_________________________________
SISNA...more service, less money.
http://www.sisna.com/exclusive/