[Geysers] Giant attempted to erupt on 2/23 but failed....

[Graham Meech]

Just a quick note as I try and catch up from a week in the park.

 

Following the 2/19 eruption I didn’t pay much attention to the Giant/Grotto
area until Friday 2/22 when Grotto started between 7 and 9am and continued
all night long.   Carolyn Loren reported Grotto off between 0910 and 0925 on
the 23rd making for at least a 24 hour Grotto but no longer than 26 ½ hours.
So since we were at the 4 day mark I thought it was worth waiting and
waiting and waiting and waiting for the recover hot period.  Finally, for
what must have been a 13 hour recovery period, at 2213 Feather popped up and
the hot period was on.  Given that it was dark and mostly cloud covered it
was hard to see but the hot period was very strong and amazingly noisy.
Several times around the 10 minute mark I thought Mastiff was starting but
it never looked like it broke the tree line.  I think about the 12 minute
mark the water levels dropped but Giant was doing vertical surges so I
didn’t get close enough to figure out that Feather was off for a while – I
didn’t want to get doused with water as it sure sounded like Giant wanted to
erupt.

 

David Goldberg and I head in as the almost-full moon came out from behind
the cloud cover and lit up the basin.  Quite an amazing end to the week but
it would sure have been exciting to see my first night-time Giant since I
had been there since the 5 hour point in the recovery.  The 2/19 Giant was
in somewhat better lighting conditions as you can see in this picture taken
from Oblong, zoomed out as to 18mm
.that steam cloud was huge!

 

More to come later,

Graham.

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