[Geysers] Very late Trip Report, July 6 through July 8 - Ken Reeves

[Ken Reeves]

I don't think this ever went through due to some problems on my end, 
hopefully they have been resolved.  I apologize for the lateness of this.
--------------------------------

It was a short amount of time spent in the basins this year since we 
spent quite a bit of time in other areas of Yellowstone.  Since our trip 
was in July this year, it was nice to meet some new gazers.  I apologize 
for not spending too much time formally introducing ourselves, but it 
seems we were always running.

Most of the major items were covered by others, so I'll embellish a 
little on what we did see.

First stop was Norris on July 6th.  In Porcelain basin, I saw a single 
eruption of Constant geyser (10:48), and two eruptions of a small geyser 
just north of Colloidal Pool at 10:11 and 10:22.  I wasn't taking 
detailed notes at this time, but the duration first eruption was on the 
order of 1 minute and the second eruption was on the order of 5 
minutes.  I've spent very little time at Norris, so I don't know if this 
is a new or ephemeral feature, but I couldn't identify it in Scott 
Bryan's book.

Monarch Crater we overflowing and bubbling pretty good.

Corporal was making a lot of commotion and thumping with collapsing 
bubbles, but the "eruption" was a pretty small splash.

At Artist Paintpots, the mud was very thick and the best I've seen it so 
far (which is only a total of 3 times).  Several people, myself 
included, got slightly splattered.

In the river group, the mud pots were mostly dry with only a few areas 
bubbling.  Mound put out a few splashes, but we didn't spend much time 
there due to a combination of time constraints and deer flies? (if 
that's what they were, they never bit us, but they were thick).  Of 
course, we saw Fountain erupting from there!

By the time we got to the Fountain group, not much was happening except 
for Clepsydra.  Red Spouter still had water, but the paint pots were 
pretty low.  Meanwhile, Great Fountain was erupting!

We got to Great Fountain to catch the end of it's eruption, but I did 
get 1/2 hour of Botryoidal data.  This included my first observed 
Botryoidal and A0 dual (I plan on writing a short article for the Sput 
on Botryoidal).
In the Upper Geyser Basin, there's not too much to add.  All Plume 
eruptions I observed were 4 burst.  All observed Jewel eruptions were 3 
or 4 burst, many with the last burst being pretty pitiful (I considered 
these as half bursts).  It was nice to see Plume and Little Anemone 
erupting again.  I did observe one dual Little/Big Anemone (Big erupted 
while Little was in eruption).  Also, the triple Beehive/Indicator/Old 
Faithful on July 8th was the highlight of our trip.

In Black Sand Basin, Spouter was empty and looked like it has been for 
quite a while, causing Opalescence to be very vivid and much less 
"opalescency" than normal.

In Midway basin, Opal was empty and also looked like it had been for 
quite a while.

Finally, I think my wife, Renee', is catching the bug because when 
"River Pause and Splashing in Main Vent" was called out, she was heading 
down the path so fast that I could barely keep up with her!

Non geyser comments, we saw three bear between Mammoth and Tower, and 
three wolf in Hayden Valley.  The focus of out trip this year was 
waterfalls, and we saw at least 21 falls include Terraced Falls along 
with Pothole, Diamond, Humpback, and Cleft Cascades.  I strongly 
recommend this hike for a very unique waterfall in an out of the way 
area. Other out of the way falls included Osprey falls and Little Gibbon 
falls.

That's all for now, and I hope to see many of you next summer.

Ken and Renee' Reeves