[Geysers] Mem day report

[Paul Strasser]

The geyser highlight of the weekend was certainly... Um... well, okay. There
weren't really any "highlights," except perhaps that Beehive appears to be
erupting every two days, minus a few hours.  

Grand had mostly one-bursters, with a couple of twos tossed in for fun. Its
1337 eruption (2 bursts) on Monday was the bookend of a 10.5 hour interval.
Nearly all other intervals were under 7 hours. 

Giant's recovery hot period at 1356 on Monday was quite strong, 10 min 2
seconds, with Mastiff surging for probably close to 8 of those minutes.  At
one point its surging was nearly the height of the cone and quite wide.
When it flattened and began surging again at the 9 minute mark I thought we
had a chance, especially considering that eruptions are taking place in hot
periods that last a much shorter time than that, but no. The restart was
good, but nothing great.  

Great Fountain's intervals averaged about 12 hours, but there are too few
data points to come to any significant conclusions about its behavior.  One
eruption was "nice," the other was meh.  

Gemini was active both on Saturday and Sunday, with several eruption series
noted.  Nothing from Crack or Pebble.  

On Sunday we saw a Fountain that included very nice bursting and surges (to
20+ feet) from Morning's Thief at the ten minute mark.  Folks near me were
excited - they thought it was Morning.  Nope.  Just like all the other
20-50+ foot eruptions I've seen from that part of the platform that occur
7-15 minutes into Fountain.  

#12 in the Kaleidoscope group had a powerful series of eruptions on Sunday
afternoon.  Like always, the series began less than an hour after the end of
a Firehose eruption.  

Suzanne had an interesting encounter with a grizzly on the drive in.  It
took place on the EAST side of Togwotee Pass on Friday evening around 11.
We were both nearly blinded by the reflection from a new sign on the side of
the road.  When we blinked to clear the after images we saw a large animal
in the left lane of 287, running in the same direction we were traveling.
At first I thought it was a bison, but noticed that its rear end was much
wider than a buffalo's.  It was an immense grizzly, and as we passed him he
turned his head to look at our car with an almost puzzled look.  We had
little interest in slowing down - having only a 1/4 inch pane of glass
between you and that huge animal wasn't very comforting.  That's the closest
we've ever been to a griz, and was certainly close enough.

The Ham's store is indeed open, which was a very pleasant surprise.

Overall, the weather was totally adequate for a Memorial Day weekend.
However, Monday was perhaps the windiest day I've ever encountered in
Yellowstone, with consistent winds probably near 30-40 for hours at a time.
It did help with gas mileage on the drive home having such a nice tailwind.


Nice weekend, good friends, and thanks to Giant we will have the periodic
geyser sits that just suck you in.

Paul Strasser