[Geysers] Geyser report, 6/28-6/29/2010

[David Schwarz]

Just a few things:

In the River Group, Mound, Brain, and Dark Pool are active.  Dark Pool is
well worth the walk for fantastic blue flames during the eruptions.  Pocket
Geyser is intermittent, but has algae growing into the edge of the pool.  It
does not appear to have erupted in a long time.  The complex of features
above Fortress is a as dead and low as I've ever seen it.  Diadem also
appears to be dormant.  The water level is the better part of a foot below
overflow, with algae starting to grow in the crater and the runoff channels
beginning to decay.

The Pocket Basin / Microcosm Basin mudpots are different from other times
I've visited them.  There are several clusters of mudpots south of the two
main basins that are active and thick, with excellent sound and height.  I'm
used to these clusters being almost completely dry.  The southern of the two
main basins was outright watery and disappointing.  The northern was better
but still too wet for the one-time mud geyser to be periodic or large.  One
cluster near the northern basin was in excellent form, throwing mud in all
directions well above and out of the crater.  Overall, although they're
wetter than I'm used to, the mudpots are well worth a visit right now.

The Sawmill Group continued on mostly Tardy mode, culminating in a > 3-hour
eruption of Penta this morning (6/29).  I believe there was also at least
one eruption of Churn this morning as well.

Beehive erupted at 0924 and 1827 on 6/29, for an interval of 9h 3m.  The
indicator on the afternoon eruption was seen i.e. at 1754.  The combination
of a long, 33+ minute indicator and shorter and shorter intervals reminds
some of us uncomfortably of the activity immediately before false indicators
took over during a couple of years in the '90s.  Of course, every year is
different, so we may be worrying for nothing.

Finally, I saw another eruption of Depression on 6/28, and take back what I
said earlier about the eruptions being weaker than in the past.  The
eruption was every bit as strong as any I saw in the '90s or '00s.  The
pre-eruptive activity was still different from previous years, as described
in the earlier report.

Wildlife / traffic:

The bison nursery herd that had been haunting the West Entrance road has
moved into their summer digs in Fountain Flats.  They've been replaced by a
herd of elk, and it turns out that a single female elk near the road at
Seven Mile Bridge is sufficient to delay outbound traffic by 45 minutes.

There are still bear warning signs all over the Upper Geyser Basin, and
anyone observing bearlike activity is encouraged to report such to their
local National Park Service representatives.  That said, it's been a number
of weeks now since there has been a bear sighting in the area, as far as I
know.

We found very unambiguous but fairly old wolf tracks in Pocket Basin near
the northern mudpots.

Two sandhill cranes were frolicking in the meadow west of White Dome this
evening (6/29).

David Schwarz
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