[Geysers] Yellowstone June 25 (Stephens)

[Lynn Stephens]

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June 25--After two hours office time, I went out to Great Fountain, with had another lovely eruption.  One of the bursts in the first series shot up to about 140', well above the steam cloud.  We had another first--a visitor dropped a camera lens in Great Fountain's runoff during the first series of bursts.  I went to get my garbage grabber.  Jere B moved down the embankment slightly to get in position to get the lens.  I heard someone tell him, "Don't do that.  A hand isn't worth the lens."  But he knew what he was doing because he used my garbage grabber to extract the lens.  I carried the lens, which was full of water, over to the visitor.  I doubt that it's salvageable.
 
When I saw Jere's pickup arrive at Great Fountain, I said, "Here's my grocery delivery."  He had gone to Bozeman Wednesday to pick up his sister at the airport and stopped at Wal-Mart to do grocery shopping for various gazers.  He had everyone's receipt and change neatly separated into plastic sandwich bags and, as needed, the orders in small styrofoam coolers.  Thank you Jere.
 
This is Jere's sister Suzanne's first trip to the park.  While we were waiting for Great Fountain, someone mentioned we sometimes get a blue bubble on the third or fourth series of bursts.  She asked, "What's a blue bubble?"  I gave the technical explanation--the water in the crater rises up in a solid column of blue color for a brief instant before shattering into a mass of white bubbles.  As we were struggling to give a better description, someone said, "You'll know it when you see it."  Sure enough, the third series had a blue bubble and she recognized it instantly.
 
As I was leaving Great Fountain, I noticed the blue flax along Firehole Lake Drive has burst into bloom.
 
The people who left Great Fountain without waiting for the very weak fifth burst made it to Fountain (0444ie per Jim, 0959).  I decided to skip Fountain and go to Till to get a major.  I arrived with about 5 minutes to spare.  Till erupted at 1016 (27h51m triple interval).  I also saw the next Till major at 1936 (I=9h20m).  I arrived for the evening eruption early to catch the start of overflow.  At 1930 there was still no overflow so I was beginning to get worried about Till interfering with Great Fountain's evening eruption.  When Till started at 1936 there still had been no overflow.  
 
After Till I decided it was time to do one of my long-term continuing data collection projects.  Since 1988 I have tried to make it a point to get at least four consecutive intervals on a small geyser named Slide.  When I first started, Slide's intervals were very regular at 15 minutes.  Over the years the intervals have remained regular, with the exception of one spring when Slide went dormant for a few weeks.  But over the years the intervals have also gradually increased to slightly over 20 minutes.  I watched Slide for 30 minutes and saw no activity whatsoever.  I also saw no algae on the edges of the traditional run-off channel.

 
Sixteen minutes after I arrived at Slide, Atomizer erupted and the eruption was a major eruption.  I could see the eruption, but since I was on the opposite side of the river, the sound of the river drowned out the sound of Atomizer's steam phase.
 
While I was giving Slide 30 minutes to show me some activity, I was entertained by a variety of butterflies and moths flitting around the meadow.  First a butterfly that was mostly orange, with white and black spots; then a white moth; now a black one.  Oh, here's a butterfly that black with a little bit of yellow on it.  The bumblebees were also buzzing around.  I noted several different types of mushrooms as I was winding my way through the lodgepole pines and over the deadfall to get to my viewing position.  In 1989 when we had a rainy June (and July) one of my friends gathered mushrooms for us to eat, but I don't know the first thing about mushroom identification so I left them all in place.
 
Yesterday afternoon when I returned to my pickup at Fountain Paint Pots parking lot after spending 8 hours there, I noted my windshield was covered with pollen.  Today as I was maneuvering through the lodgepole pines I noted I was frequently releasing a cloud of yellow pollen as I brushed against the trees.
 
Having head such short waits at Till and Atomizer, I decided to get an up close and personal view of Narcissus Geyser.   As I was making my way toward Narcissus, "Dragonfly" was ie at 1136.  (When I returned at 1222, as far as I could tell, the crater was completely empty.)

 

I set up my chair at 11:45, noting that Narcissus was in overflow.  It erupted at 11:59.  (I missed the next eruption time for Narcissus, but did see the steam cloud at 1724ie.)
 
Because Narcissus's eruption lasted 11 minutes, I knew it would erupt again in about two hours, but I didn't want to wait so I decided to go to the Fountain Complex to collect more data on what Fountain's little neighbors do when Fountain is not erupting.  As I was walking past the mud pots on my way to Fountain itself, I noted that there was some red clover in bloom and the apple tree was also in bloom.  

 

While I was waiting for Fountain, Jet erupted at 8-11 minute intervals until Fountain started.  Then it erupted at 1-3 minute intervals during Fountain's eruption.  Spasm (start 1439) erupted for about 20 minutes.  Twig started at 1610 and was still ie at 1639 when I left.  Clepsydra did not stop again after the Fountain eruption.
 
I saw a series of Kaleidoscope eruptions and several eruptions of Honey's Vent, but none of Drain and none of Honeycomb.
 
When Fountain erupted (1551) I overheard one 12-14 year old boy say, "That is one fierce geyser!"  (One last Fountain eruption for 6/25--Fountain was ie, early in the eruption at 2124.  It was not ie when I left Great Fountain, but was ie as I was driving on the north side of the Firehole Lake Drive toward the main road.)
 
I did stay in the Lower Basin for Great Fountain's eruption at 2054.  The sun was just above the horizon when it erupted.  I didn't take any series of the first burst, which was pretty.  The sun provided a gilt edge on some of the clouds and the shadows from a couple sun rays on the clouds provided some interesting visual effects.  The second burst was fairly lackadaisical, but the clouds were starting to turn pink and the pink and lilac sky was reflected in the terraces so it was very lovely.
 
The mosquitoes both last night (6/24) and tonight (6/25) were horrendous.  Even with lots and lots and lots of bug spray, clothing covering every square inch of my body except a small space between one kerchief on top of my head covering my forehead and another kerchief around my neck, pulled up to cover my cheeks and nose, the bugs were still extremely annoying.  A couple dozen of them hovered about 4 to 6 inches away from me just waiting until the spray wore off or a piece of cloth slipped to briefly reveal skin and give them a chance to attack.  Oh for some wind to keep them away!
 
At the afternoon Fountain eruption, several gazers commented on the bison jam north of  Biscuit Basin that had delayed them 10, 15, even 20+ minutes.  The jam still had not cleared when I returned home.  The herd was walking down the road, mostly in the northbound lane, which was backed up to about Black Sand Basin.  But traffic in the southbound lane was also stop, creep, stop some more to either let bison cross the road, but mostly to create flashing bison as people were taking pictures.

 

Lynn Stephens


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