[Geysers] Geyser Report 6/1 Stephens

[Lynn Stephens]

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FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE, INCLUDING PUBLICATION IN THE SPUT.

 

This is a somewhat abbreviated report since I went home about noon today, turned my radio off, so don't have any information or stories after 12:15.

 

After delogging from yesterday, seeing no one on Geyser Hill watching Beehive, and knowing that several gazers had left yesterday, I decided to take my turn watching for water in Beehive's Indicator instead of scurrying from the office to get in view of Beehive after someone else had called the Indicator.  After 3 hours, I was about ready to leave.  Steve Eide, Barbara Lasseter, and Bill and Carol Beverly had left to go watch Aurum splash.  Jim Schreirer was talking about going to breakfast, Scott Bryan was talking about going to Daisy and "If I see Beehive from there, oh well."  I was thinking about heading to the Lodge for a pit stop.  Just then Scott saw water rising in the Indicator (0809).  The sun broke through the clouds while the Indicator was still erupting, and continued shining through Beehive's eruption (0826).  None of us on Geyser Hill wanted to walk through the column of water that was dowsing the boardwalk to get over to the Plume side of the column so we could watch the rainbow.  Jere B and Sabrina heard the radio call for the Indicator when they were just north of Biscuit Basin, so they watched the eruption from the overlook.  

 

When I arrived at Great Fountain, it was already in full rim boiling overflow.  One of the new law enforcement rangers heard my prediction (9:30 +/- 15 minutes) over the NPS radio and was able to see his first eruption, or rather, hear it because it was quite steamy this morning.  (Sometimes I get really, really luck with my predictions.  Great Fountain erupted exactly on the midpoint of the prediction I called in to the Visitor Center--9:30 [double interval 22h05m].)  The prediction hadn't been relayed into the Upper Basin itself, so no gazers made it out to Great Fountain for the start of the eruption since it erupted right on the opening of the window.  

 

White Dome demonstrated one of the immutable laws of geyser gazing:  As soon as one published a theory of geyser connections, the next observation invalidates the theory.  Today, I arrived at Great Fountain at 0901.  White Dome did not erupt until 0931, one minute after Great Fountain had the big boil.  Oh well, the theory didn't tell me which White Dome to pick, and it wasn't my theory anyway, so it doesn't bother me to see that it doesn't work.

 

After Great Fountain I stopped at Pink Cone, which erupted at 1043 (I=22h59m).  My "human interest" item for this is an apology to Mike Frazier for misspelling his name in my report a few days ago about his presence at Pink Cone (I often forget to run spell checker through these messages, so maybe this will make me try to remember to do so more frequently.)  But, here's my chance to work into one of these posts the story of how Mike ended up on Geyser Hill for an early morning Beehive eruption.  As I was walking on the jugwalk past Old Faithful, Mike joined me.  When we got to the junction where the path splits to either go toward Blue Star Spring or to continue on to geyser Hill, Mike started to go left toward Blue Star Spring.  I had already made up my mind I was going to try for Geyser Hill and just kept going straight.  MIke changed his mind about going to the overlook when he realized I was going for Geyser Hill.  I thought maybe he figured that since I'm one of the slowest gazers there is, if I could make it, he could make it.  But he said he decided he wasn't going to be the only gazer at the overlook, especially if Lynn, who almost always watches Beehive from the overlook was going to be at Beehive!  Both of us made it to Beehive, even though I stopped at Little Squirt to record the ie time, as well as Jim's call on the Indicator, and a couple other items that I hadn't taken time to write down as I exited the Visitor Center in my scramble to get to Beehive.

 

After Pink Cone I went to Till, which started at 1159--a double interval of 18h46m, average 9h23m, the longest I've had so far this season.  The small herd of Bison was still at Till when I drove out to Great Fountain this morning but had moved to the area just north of the Steel Bridge entrance when I was watching Till.  Thankfully I don't have to contend with the herd of 300 bison at the north end of Fountain Flats the way the people from West Yellowstone and Madison campground have to.

 

Once I had watched a few minutes of Till, I decided to go home, eat a hot lunch and take a nap.  Great Fountain's eruption this morning did not have a fifth burst, so I thinking it will have a short interval and I was hoping for a sunset eruption.  When I awoke from my nap, the sky was completely clouded over.  I'll still probably go out for this evening's eruption, but am doubtful there's going to be a sunset to accompany it.

 

Lynn Stephens

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