[Geysers] Trip report, Sep 1 through Sep 9

[Ken Reeves]

A somewhat late report.

Since most of the major and common geysers have been reported by many of 
the other folks, I'll just report on some of the lesser geysers that I 
spent some time with.

I spent about 1 1/2 hour at Solitary.  Intervals were very regular 
ranging from 4 minutes 56 seconds to 5 minutes 29 seconds, where the 
start time was measured as the first "major" burst.  There are 2 major 
vents in the pool with the first to the left and behind the second vent 
as seen from the plaque.  Usually, there is rippling over both vents, 
the back vent starts with some slight boiling action then the front vent 
has some slight boiling.  After a slight pause, the front vent erupts 
with 1 to 3 bursts with an estimated height of 2 to 20 ft.  I considered 
the eruption as small if the largest burst is < 5 ft, medium if between 
5 and 15 ft, and large if > 20ft.  Out of the 21 eruption I saw, 10 were 
1-burst, 10 were 2-burst, and 1 was 3-burst.  6 eruptions were small, 11 
were medium, and 4 were large.

I spent about 1/2 hour at Spray geyser.  Play was almost all out of the 
vertical vent.  Start/stop times are somewhat subjective on this 
geyser.  The intervals (start to start) ranged from 1 minute 42 seconds 
to 2 minutes 36 seconds and durations from 47 seconds to 1 minute 36 
seconds, plus one duration of 2 minutes 54 seconds.  To me this long 
duration looked like two eruptions the merged together.  The stop to 
start time ranged from 32 seconds to 1 minute 29 seconds.

While there, I also spent about 20 minutes at Imperial geyser.  Play 
seemed to be more frequent than I remembered in the past.  Intervals 
(start to start) ranged from 54 seconds to 2 minutes 39 seconds, 
durations ranged from 33 seconds to 2 minutes 33 seconds, and stop to 
start times from 17 seconds to 26 seconds.

Two other small geysers I spent some time with were Botryoidal Geyser 
and Round Spring Geyser.  I will be writing Sput articles about these.

Of course, the big excitement was seeing my first Giant on the 5th!  
Most unusual experience was watching Depression Geyser erupt and having 
a tourist emphatically state that it wasn't erupting.

See you next year.

Ken Reeves