[Geysers] Trip report

[Stephen J. Eide]

Greetings and Salutations,

I have a short trip report, most of the earlier reports this week have
already covered the major eruptions.  Plume has usually shown intervals
in the 40-50 minute range, usually about 50 in the morning and 40-45 by
the afternoon.  All week Plume gave five burst eruptions but Friday and
Saturday before I left they were almost all four burst eruptions.
Daisy's intervals have been between 2:15 and 3:45, it still seems to be
true that whatever interval it uses for the first few eruptions of the
day it will continue with throughout the day.  Little Cub's intervals
appear to be about an hour.  Depression appears to have intervals around
twelve hours, but there may be a big range to that.  Depression was
sometimes seen in the early morning and again just before sunset.  There
was an eruption at 1935 on 5-21 and another at 0549 on 5-22 for an
interval of ten hours fourteen minutes.  Again I find myself eagerly
waiting for Ralph's data.  I think Aurum is still on winter/spring mode,
when I was around on the main hill and had a previous time I could
usually catch Aurum at about 3 hours 45 minutes for an interval.  For
the entire week I only saw one eruption of Plate and I don't remember
another being in the book at the visitor's center.  Lion was having
series of about four eruptions, sometimes five.  It appeared the
interval from start to start was a bit over 12 hours.  Artimesia had
intervals between 16 and over 24 hours.  I had a hard time catching
Till, but from the times I thought it had just finished erupting I think
last year's intervals of 10-11 hours still holds true.  Castle only did
one minor in the week I was in the park.  As Scott has already said,
there was a Penta eruption almost every day but I only managed to catch
one from the start.

Fountain appears to have had intervals between 6:30 and 8 hours the last
week.  Add this to the data from the first week in May and the intervals
appear to be in the 6:30 to 9 hour range, but it is likely can still
throw in a shorter interval like it did last year.  Just when I thought
I had the eruptions timed I'd walk out there and find I was either
several hours too early or several hours too late.  Spasm is still doing
the short eruptions of about 11 minutes at about 1.5 hour intervals
until Fountain erupts.  Jelly rises at about a rate of two inches per
hour for several hours prior to Fountain but never did make overflow
that I saw.  However one day it was cloudy, so it may still be having
eruptions from time to time.  I did stay out at Fountain for one full
interval, Jet was interesting, starting several hours before Fountain
erupted Jet starting making noise and had periods of increased steam,
but did not have an eruption.  It acted like it just couldn't quite
erupt.  Finally it had one eruption and a few minutes later Fountain
started.  I have seen this in the past, but then Jet started 1.5 to 0.5
hours before Fountain.  For the rest of the Fountain eruptions I saw,
Jet was its normal self.  Because of the wind I usually didn't have a
good look at Morning's Thief but when I did I only saw one five foot
boil.  Mostly it did nothing.  Morning did not make an appearance but I
am still hopeful.  I did talk to one of the guides who was at the
possible Morning eruption a few weeks ago.  The description he gave was
of a short Morning eruption, it did not appear to be Morning's Thief
however I admit this is still unclear.

For the Beehive eruption on Sunday 5-20 I was up on the main hill by
Plume, I watched a Big and Little Anemone dual and when I turned around
Beehive's Indicator was IE at 1233.  I thought of calling it NS, but
truthfully it could have started any time in the prior two minutes.
Beehive was at 1236 so no matter how you look at it the time between the
indicator and Beehive was short.

Most of my Grand eruptions were one burst, but I did catch a three burst
this week.  Overall it appears the burst count is up this year.

In the River group the mud pots at great.  They are sorta dry, like it
was late summer instead of late spring.  Some in the north part of the
mud pots still have about 10-12 feet of loft.  The mud volcanos are not
as active this year, or perhaps are drier so do not appear as
interesting.  Several of the springs above Fortress (or Conch) are
active as geysers.  Mound appears to be normal.  Diadem spring appears
warmer but not boiling and there is a new vent (or at least new to me)
in the south-east side of its run off channel that rises, boils to a
inch or so, and sometimes overflows about every minute.  The runoff
channel appears to show more activity then I saw occurs from time to
time.  RVG-4 was active but only had a height of about 2-3 inches
usually.  Pocket Basin Geyser would not erupt for me.

Good luck in the park with your next visit,

Stephen Eide