[Geysers] Yellowstone Report June 13

[Lynn Stephens]

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After spending 5 hours in the office yesterday afternoon working on the logbooks, I decided that instead of going home to the trailer, I would eat the homemade sausage-bean soup in the wide-mouth thermos bottle that I hadn't eaten for lunch as dinner instead, and then go to Geyser Hill, hoping that just possibly we might get a second daylight Beehive.

 

While I was still in the DNBSPL, Carol Beverly came over to say her goodbyes (Bill and Carol left this--Saturday--morning.)  While we were talking I saw my first red wing blackbird of the season.  I always enjoy seeing them.  When I was on a faculty exchange to Ghana, I used to see black wing redbirds, which really made me miss Yellowstone.  Carol said they had seen a scarlet tanager while they were in the River Group.

 

After saying goodbye to Carol I moved the pickup to the lodge parking lot and ambled on up to Geyser Hill with an extra jacket and some light weight reading material.  As I passed Plume, headed to the benches, a visitor asked if I knew whether the Ranger walk started at the benches there at Plume or whether it started at the benches over there, as she pointed toward Beehive.  I responded that I wasn't positive, but I thought the ranger walk met somewhere around the benches near Old Faithful and pointed across the river toward Old Faithful.  She responded, "Oh, THAT's Old Faithful?"  Another member of family said, "See I told you so," as they went scurring away off Geyser Hill.

 

(While I was on Geyser Hill Plume had intervals of 66, 59, and 66 minutes.)

 

I watched two Old Faithful eruptions from Geyser Hill.  The one at 1947 wasn't under the best viewing conditions because the steam was blowing toward Geyser Hill, but the eruption was still memorable because there was a rainbow embellishing the left edge of the column.

 

Yesterday was certainly an historic day for me on Geyser Hill.  No, Beehive didn't again before dark.  But I was on Geyser Hill and walked over to watch TWO lion initial eruptions, and was also on Geyser Hill for both second eruptions.  The evening initial (1929, interval of 12h38m from initial to initial) was superbly backlit.

 

As we were walking away, I commented to Allan Friedman that it would certainly be nice if I could add a second Depression to my day.  His comment essentially rated my changes at about zero.  Allan had intended to leave Beehive about 20:30; I said I would give it until 21:00.  Allan left about 20:30, but a few minutes later returned because a bison herd was blocking the pathway off Geyser Hill.  Allan walked over toward Depression to make a telephone call, and a few minutes later I looked over, thought, "That's a lot of steam, oh, there's water" and called Depression ie (probably near start) at 20:35, an interval of about 12h38m, which, coincidentally, was the same as the interval from Lion initial to Lion initial.

 

While we were waiting for the bison herd to clear away from the trail, several visitors passed by.  One woman, about my age and size, asked what they could do.  My response was to either wait, or they could go up the hill to Lion, take the path through the trees to Sawmill, turn left at Sawmill to cross the bridge, go up the hill to Castle, and then walk back toward the Lodge on the paved path.  Her response, "Holy S**T, do I look like the kind of person who can walk that far?"  I guess she made it because Allan and I didn't pass her as we walked the same path, arriving at the Lodge just before 2200, taking with us several other visitors who had waited on Geyser Hill hoping the bison would move away.  But with a little orange calf bedded down next to the path, several bulls bedded down near the path, and the others showing no inclination to move along, Allan and I decided we'd better leave so we wouldn't have to walk the back path after dark.  One retired eighth-grade earth science teacher who joined us on the trek said it had been one of the most memorable experiences of his life--getting to see wildlife like that, and a few geyser eruptions also.

 

Most of the clouds had cleared away in the late afternoon, with the exception of one large cloud to the south of the Old Faithful Inn.  While we were waiting to get off Geyser Hill, about 2100 the sun turned the cloud a pale pink and then a darker pink.  The pink reflection of that cloud made an interesting color combination in the runoff from the orange and brown algae beds east of Beehive.

 

As was expected, lack of cloud cover allowed the basin to cool overnight.  This morning I enjoyed a pale pink sunrise as I was scraping ice off the windshield and waiting for the pick-up to warm up enough so the windshield would clear enough so I could drive.

 

When I left the DNBSPL at 5:58 am, the majority of the bison herd was bedded down in the meadow between Geyser Hill and the parking lot.  (Allan said some of them had moved into the cabin area, forcing him to retreat from his planned path this morning.)  Sometime between 0600 and 0615 the herd began their morning migration.  I had to pedal my bike from Castle back to the parking lot instead of just coasting down the hill so I could use the asphalt cut-off by the lift station.

 

For awhile this morning Scott and I played "What metal item can we keep between ourselves and the bison?" until the herd finally moved into the Myriad Group.

 

The other day Jere B was giving me grief about me just not wanting to ride my bike down to Fan & Mortar.  At that time I replied that I had ridden to the north end of the basin twice--once to check out Link's aftermath and once for a hot period where somebody forgot to call "Put a fork in it."  This morning when he arrived, I greeted him with "I've now ridden my bike to F&M three times.  I went down this morning to check that the marker had been replaced."  It took him a few seconds to absorb the implications of my statement.  He started to respond with some comment about "Wow--three times in how," then aborted his planned comment with a "Hallelujiah, the marker needed replacing, it's alive."

 

When I got out to Great Fountain, I could tell the prediction was going to be a few hours off because it hadn't started refilling yet, so I alerted the Visitor Center I was going to move the mid-point of the +- 2-hour prediction from 12:15 p.m.  to 2:30 p.m.  

 

Not wanting to wait several hours for overflow, I moved to the Pink Cone group.  After 1h38m of observation, Pink Cone erupted on the first splash, a sudden, explosive, non-nonsense type of start (09:23, I ~ 21 hours).  Labial was doing post-eruptive splashing when I arrived at 07:45.  Per steam cloud from Great Fountain, it erupted again at 14:43.

 

I had a short duration Narcissus eruption at 0849, a long duration eruption 12:38ie.  Most of us were still watching Great Fountain when I noticed Narcissus at 1459ie.

 

Although the first burst of Great Fountain was an N&P burst (nice and pretty), the best burst was the fourth, which was quite bluesy.  Someone who had previously thought my accounts of blue bubbles on the third or fourth or even later bursts were just yarns is now a true believer in blue bubbles, at least on the fourth.

 

Because this is getting too long, I'll save some of the stories from Great Fountain this afternoon for a day when I need more material.  However, Mista Bill Warnock (he insisted on having his name published this way) insisted he would be quite distraught if I failed to note his observation that the pool of Blue Fountain [this is not a typo] dropped 4 inches when White Dome erupted, thereby proving the link between the two.  I'm not certain what the nature of the link is yet, but then I'm easily confused when surrounded by the hot air of a bunch of gazers firing a barrage of theories, geyser terminology, and geyser names at me.

 

Lynn Stephens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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