[Geysers] Geyser Report 5/25 (Stephens)

[Lynn Stephens]

AS USUAL, THIS IS NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR REPRODUCTION.

 

Just a few things to add to Scott's report for May 25:

 

I left Great Fountain last night after the fifth series, which was strong, lasting over 7 mintues with only very short pauses between the individual bursts in the series, and several individual bursts reaching well over 100 feet.  I knew it was going to have additional bursts, I just didn't know how many.  I had asked the Visitor Center to move the prediction out to 14 hours.  After getting an eruption of Till (for a closed interval of 8h57m) and a few of the minors, I went to Great Fountain, saw that it was still a gaping crater at 8 am and asked the next person through (Dee Dykes) to ask the visitor center to take it off the prediction board completely because it was going to be "hours" before it erupted.  It finally had one false overflow lasting about 12 minutes, crashed, came back for a true overflow of 85 minutes, and erupted at 1730, an interval of 21h42m.  Of course, now I wish I had stayed last night just to get the duration rather than leaving thinking I would be satisfied just knowing it was going to have a "much longer than usual" duration.  (One other time when I saw an interval near 24 hours, I watched 19 series before leaving to do something else.)

 

About 3 pm I overheard Clark Murray and Pat Snyder debating/wondering what to do this afternoon since Great Fountain wasn't in overflow, so I gave them a prediction for Till (admittedly partially with a selfish motive because after sitting there all day I wasn't going to miss the start of Great Fountain overflow to leave to get a time on Till myself).  The prediction worked, Pat Snyder got to see her first eruption of Till, including first overflow and the flood, and I have another closed interval (9h02m).

 

Fountain interval this afternoon 1144 to 1915 = 7h31m.

 

I had told myself I was going to go home after Great Fountain ended (it had only three bursts this evening and both the second and third were very weak, so the next prediction is about 3:30 am so this time I won't be going out there).  But as KC and Julie Thomson were headed to Fountain, KC had called that Pink Cone's thumbhole was drooling.  So I stopped at Pink Cone after Great Fountain ended.  I saw my first eruption of Labial of the season.  I have about 7 intervals for Box Spring and 7 intervals for Bead--nothing out of the ordinary for either geyser.

 

After Fountain KC and Julie (Thomson) joined me at Pink Cone.  While waiting, we heard the sandhill cranes that we've been seeing at Hot Lake calling to each other.  

 

Pink Cone finally erupted at 2137.  We had been hoping for a backlit sunset eruption, but had to "settle" for a tiny bit of orange at the horizon, a sliver of a moon, and a shimmering curtain of water that coated the platform with silvery sheen.  None of us took out a camera, but we have fantistic pictures in our minds.  Maybe tomorrow I'll put in a reasonable length day.

 

Lynn Stephens

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