[Geysers] Yellowstone July 9 (Stephens)

[Lynn Stephens]

July 9, 2009
           One of Kitt’s calls during the Fan & Mortar event cycle had been “It’s cold down here” warning everyone to bring a warm jacket.  It got cold enough during the night that I had to scrape ice from the windshield this morning.
            Last night Castle had one of its "pause" eruptions.  Hatfields watched it start at 21:15, watched it for a few minutes, then left.  I arrived at 21:20 and it was going up and down, up and down, with pauses of several seconds between the 10 to 15 foot bursts.  After a few minutes of this I announced to the few visitors still there that it appeared Castle had had a minor eruption and was in sloppy phase, especially since this was 50 minutes past the close of the window.  I rode away at 21:24 and when I arrived at the parking lot at 21:25, Castle had resumed continous jetting and the bursts were going 50+ feet high.  Boy, did I feel foolish!  Today's eruptoin started at 11:11, just 1 minute off the midpoint of the window that had been posted based on the 2125ns time.
            I stopped in the Visitor Center to add last night’s Beehive eruption to the logbook, then came to the office to work on the geyser article again today.  Beehive decided to have an even shorter interval this morning.  Tricia called water in the Indicator at 0835 and the Indicator was called in the same minute.  I decided to drive from the parking lot in front of  the ranger station to the Old Faithful Lodge cabins, park there, then run up onto Geyser Hill so I could watch Beehive up close and personal. 
            I forgot that maintenance was repainting some of the turn arrows in the parking lots and roads, so I had to drive an extra mile.  I had also forgotten Kitt’s warning call to people in the cabins that a bull bison had plopped himself down on the path from the cabins to the boardwalk that goes to Geyser Hill.  Since I had already been delayed by the paint, I took an old path from the cabins through the trees to Geyser Hill.  As I rejoined the official path, a couple asked if I worked here.  I responded, “Yes,” and told them that Beehive was going to erupt soon and it was much taller than Old Faithful.  They asked me to show them where Beehive was, so I pointed toward the steam cloud from the Indicator and said they could either take the path that way past Blue Star Spring or they could follow me up on Geyser Hill.  They asked which way was faster and I pointed toward Blue Star Spring.  Having come that far though I was going to take the longer way and go up on Geyser Hill to watch the eruption.
     I arrived at Beehive in plenty of time because the indicator lasted 21 minutes before Beehive finally started.  People were trying to get pictures of me on Geyser Hill since some of them had not yet seen me there this summer, but I kept maneuvering myself behind LC Doughtery to block their cameras, assuming none of them had one of those right-angle lens that takes a picture 90 degrees away from the lens appears to be aimed.  Beehive erupted at 0856, an interval of 10h36m.
    After saying goodbye to the Millers who are returning to England today, I went back to the office and worked on my geyser activity article until noon.
            I moved to Great Fountain.  Fountain's steam cloud went up at 1321ns and ended at 1351.
            Great Fountain erupted at 1547 (oflw = 82, p=2).  The first burst was pretty with the white water against the blue sky that was dotted with white clouds.  Several bursts had good hang time and the steam took a few seconds to catch up with the water.  The sun caught the water droplets turning them into glistening crystal globes.  The second, third, and fourth bursts had a few pretty bursts, but generally were fairly lackadaisical so I expect the next interval will be shorter than average.
            When I returned to the Upper Basin, Kitt flagged me down to tell me that Beehive’s Indicator had had a mid-cycle eruption that lasted about 3 minutes.  This morning we were discussing the possibility of false indicators since the lead-time has increased to 21 minutes for the past few Beehive eruptions.  Hopefully this won’t be a summer of false indicators where the indicator erupts but Beehive doesn’t.
            After Great Fountain I returned to the office to work on the geyser activity article some more, where I'll stay until I hear the call of water in Beehive's Indicator or until my shoulders start to ache from too much typing.
 
Lynn Stephens  
 
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