[Geysers] Late Geyser Report 1/17-1/24

[Graham Meech]

I had another winter trip this year and again lucked out with good weather
for most of my trip.  Not so lucky with big geyser eruptions though.  No
Giant eruption this winter!

 

Fan and Mortar - I spent a lot of time at F&M early in the week thinking
that it was in its window.  It erupted sometime during the week, most likely
overnight 21st/22nd.  I only saw two event cycles the whole week, one on
Sunday 18th (Gold pause with no Main vent splashing or other events) and
Monday 19th (Main vent splashing, about 45 minutes of Bottom vent with
occasional stops, a River vent pause, but then Angle started a minute before
River came on and there was never much water in the vents).  On Tuesday 20th
there was a strong "un-eventful" cycle that ended with a small splash from
Upper Mortar out of the cone.

 

Spiteful - As Carolyn Loren reported, there was a visitor report of an
eruption on 1/22 which happened to be the one day I was completely out of
the basin on the Canyon Snowcoach tour.  I never saw anything significant
from Spiteful over all the time I spent down there.  The perpetual spouting
vent was going strong, 1-2' all the time.

 

Morning Glory - It looked a much darker green color making me wonder whether
it's cooled down a bit?

 

Riverside - 1100 and 1700 seemed to work well for predictions all week long.
Overflow seemed to be just over 90 minutes based on not much data.

 

Giant group - Bijou on strong nearly all the time and a lot of depth
charging from Mastiff and left-right splashing within Giants cone.  There is
still snow on the front of the platform indicating no hot periods are taking
place.

 

Grotto - appeared to have a lot of short eruptions early in the week based
on me seeing it start and stop a lot.  There was a Marathon on 1/23 based on
a long eruption and Spa erupting.  Prior to the Marathon I saw two Grotto
starts with no Grotto Fountain and then after the Marathon I saw a Grotto
start with Grotto Fountain - looks like its behaving the same as last year.

 

Daisy - some intervals were almost 3 hours but it also had some as short as
~2h 6m.  The left cone splashed 25-45 minutes before eruptions.  There was a
question about whether Splendid erupted but I saw no evidence of an
eruption.  There was still a lot of snow covering the runoff channel and the
bacteria mat seemed undisturbed to me but I did not go up close to Splendid
until after the questions came up so I don't know if there was any change in
the area.  It just didn't look like anything unusual had happened.

 

Oblong - big and steamy but I never got to see any closed intervals.  It's
easier to keep track of on the webcam!  I did get to feel the thumps up
close on one occasion though :)

 

Beauty in control.

 

Grand was nice to me - I ended up with a  Burst count of 2 when I was
up-close (1 single burst, 2 two burst, and 1 three burst).  Intervals seemed
all over the place, in the 6-10 hour interval being used for predictions.  I
never saw Rift erupt but I think that's just a coincidence.   Water in West
Triplet and West Triplet starting were still good signs for a Grand
eruption.

 

Bulger - frequent minors.

 

Penta - I saw a couple of steam phase eruptions but no water eruptions and
never saw any water in the runoff channel despite seeing a few Tardy cycles.
They all ended with Sawmill rather than Penta.

 

Beehive - thanks to my webcam watching friends who called me on my cell
phone to tell me the indicator was going, I managed to see 3 1/2 eruptions,
two of which were close up, one from the bike path by the Inn parking lot
and the 1/2 eruption from Penta after a long slog up from Grotto.

 

The small UNNG between the boardwalk and Marmot Cave was splashing up to 6"
all the time.

 

Aurum - frequently seen growling from depth which I presume means it erupted
shortly before I arrived at it each time...grrrr.

 

Dome - seen in eruption on 1/24 with a couple of 18min closed intervals.

 

Plume - I didn't spend as much time watching it as I wanted and only counted
bursts on 3 occasions.  The first early in the week was 7 burst and the two
later in the week were both 5 burst with full 5th bursts, not the weak ones
that were common last year.  Based on recent short intervals it may be
getting back to "normal".

 

OF - still going.....very enjoyable to listen to it with so little noise
during daylight.

 

Biscuit Basin - One quick visit.  Shell and East Mustard had strong
eruptions.  Salt and Pepper (or whatever they are called this year) had more
volume in the splashes then I recall  seeing before.  Avoca is either not
having eruptions or the intervals are long enough for it to dry out in the
winter wind and sun.  Silver Globe has a lot of water and had frequent
splashes under the overhang.  Theres another steamy patch in the parking lot
by the metal plate too so we will see what that does this year.

 

Midway - Excelsior and Opal Pool did not erupt when I was there.

 

Fountain - another quick visit with a couple of Jets (8-10min intervals),
Honeys Vent and NTFL were active too. 

 

West Thumb - Twin is dead.  Water levels seemed higher in Ledge Spring and
adjacent springs but there's a lot of snow around too so nothing is erupting
there.  Biggest geyser I saw there was Fishing Cone side vent...woohoo.
Lots of steam from King so maybe its active.

 

That's about it for geyser news.

 

Graham.

 

 

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