[Geysers] Geyser Report 6/8 Stephens

[Lynn Stephens]

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Most of my geyser observation day involved Till and Atomizer.

 

Till majors--08:29 (quadruple interval averaging 9h06m) and 1714 (I=8h45m).

 

I started watching Atomizer from the road this morning due to the variable weather.  I saw a 45 second minor at 09:32 and then a 60 second minor at 11:17.  This minor was followed by intense splahing lasting about 15 minutes after the minor, so I took a break to return to the office for awhile.

 

I walked up to Atomizer with Barbara Lasseter (who was going up for Artemisia).  There was a 70 second Atomizer at 1337.  I announced a prediction for the Atomizer major and Ben Hoppe decided to join us.  I had been watching an angry dark dripping cloud and said to Barbara I hoped it would slide by us.  Ben shared some of his pictures from the last two weeks with us.  We got the pictures put away in the safety of his backpack just in the nick of time before the storm hit us.  We couldn't decide whether it was sleet, hail, large hard pellets of snow or something else.  Whatever it was, I had to agree with Ben who said, "It's cold, it's wet, and whatever we call it, I don't like it."  I had taken my "cape" (as someone called my rain poncho yesterday) with me, but hadn't taken time to change from my sandals with socks to my boots.  The wind was driving the pellets from north to south and those little suckers packed a huge sting.  We waited through one fill-boil-up of Atomizer, then it erupted on the next fill (14:57, I = 17h34m).  We waited about minutes before bailing out--Ben heading south toward Old Faithful and Barbara and I heading north to our vehicles at Biscuit Basin.

 

Before Ben arrived, while Barbara and I were waiting, we were talking about the snowshoe rabbits that have been seen at Artemisia.  (I saw at least two rabbits several times there last summer; Julie and KC saw four there this year, and Barbara has seen them this year.)  Barbara asked whether their white feet turned brown in winter.  I didn't know the answer, but after a little research on the internet, it appears that they turn white in the winter, with the exception of black on the tips of the ears, so they blend in with their surroundings.  In the summer they turn rusty brown, with grayish-white on the underside, and some black on the top of the tail and the tips of the ears.  It appears that their feet also turn brown in the summer.

 

Yesterday on geyser hill I saw some fringed gentians in bloom.  I've also seen larkspur in bloom several places.

 

Yesterday I watched two pair of osprey circling over the area between Biscuit Basin and Artemisia.  This morning I watched a pair of osprey circling over the steel bridge.  While I was waiting for Till this morning I also listened to and watched a pair of sandhill cranes in the meadow on the hillside on the west side of the Firehole River.  Several robins were chirping away in a high pitch in the lodgepole pines near where I was parked.  After a raven hiding in one of the trees finally left, the robins' songs changed to a more pleasant melody.

 

Other geyser information that Scott and Ben may not put in their reports--Bil and Carol Beverly reported Great Fountain erupted at 1512 and they also reported Artemisia was in eruption at 1625.  I had a Plume interval of 69 minutes this afternoon.  Lion was having terminal roars between 1530 and 1600.

 

Lynn Stephens

 

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