[Geysers] Trip report April 16-24 Upper Basin

[Stephen Eide]

Greetings and Salutations,

I missed opening day but did make it to the park April 16-24 2011.  I will
break this report into sections to make it easier for me.  In the Upper
Basin [Biscuit and Black Sand to come separately] this is what I saw:
Bronze Spring was very full and lightly overflowing whenever I walked past
it.  I only saw Little Squirt once, but I spent a lot of time at F & M.
Both Big and Little Anemone were active.  Plume was usually at about an hour
as Graham has been reporting, but on the 22 it was more like one hour ten to
one hour twenty minutes.    Depressions were in te 3=4 hour range.  Little
Cub was in the 45-50 minute range for intervals.  I usually was not sure
then Loin had its initial but I think we usually had at least part of a
series during the daylight each day. Oops, forgot Beehive.  On Beehive the
Bubblers were not active.  Usually it appears the intervals are in the 11-15
hour range.  For the few times I got to see the water in the indicator first
the time from water to the start of BHI was about half a minute or less,
The time from BHI to Beehive was in the 10-15 minute range.   I don't know
what happening on the 23rd, Beehive on the 22 was at 1502, then it surprised
everyone with an eruption on the 23rd at 1254 ie, perhaps without the
indicator.  Unfortunately none of the gazers in the basin could see the area
around BHI when BH started.  Other than that Beehive looked very stable.
Plate showed up on the 23 with a nice normal eruption.  But only that one
was seen.  Aurum was in the 3-4 hour range usually except on the 22nd it
erupted at 1054, 1349, and 1744 for two consecutive intervals under three
hours.  Doublet pool thumps as normal.  Vault is about an inch or so below
overflow as in Infant.  Dome had an eruptive series that lasted about two
days.  Due to bears and snow I decided not to visit Solitary Geyser.  The
hole that was erupting last year between Scissors Spring and Depression but
on the other side of the boardwalk was quiet when I looked at it.  Uphill
Geyser (aka ":The Mouth") was active.

In the Sawmill group it was almost all Tardy cycles.  I saw Sawmill once up
close and I think I saw it one other time from a distance.  Other than that
it was all Tardy cycles.  I think Penta erupted at least daily, sometimes
several times a day.  Churn was even more active, it erupted at the end of
most of the Tardy cycles even if Penta did not erupt in series of two to six
eruptions about 20 minutes apart.  Until this trip I have never seen a Churn
eruption, but on the 24 I saw nine in a 4.5 hour period over two Tardy
cycles.  Also Bulger was very active with minors building up to one to
three majors, then back to minors again.  Crystal springs side vents were
also very active during the week.  However I saw no sign of Uncertain or
Slurp.  Old Tardy was about as active as usual.  The Sawmill group was quite
fun to be in.

Beauty Pool has all the energy and overflow.  Chromatic is now cool, it  has
lost that nice light blue color in its throat it had last year.

Oblong appeared to be pretty regular in the 4-6 hour range.  Grotto was
usually in marathon when it erupted, I only saw one eruption of about 1.5
hours, one of about 4-5 hours, and the others were all marathons, one a
day.  In spite of that nothing appeared to be happening at Giant.  And
although Spa looked like it was going to erupt several times, it didn't for
me.

Daisy was in the 2.5 to 2.75 hour range in spite of the high winds most of
the week.  I did not manage to catch Pyramid during the trip.

Riverside appears to be doing almost all shorts.  The afternoon eruptions
walked back each day from 4-17-11 1658, 4-18-11 1608 ie, 4-20-11 1458,
4-21-11 1402, 4-22-11 1407 ie, 4-23-11 1320 and 4-24-11 at 1236 ie.

A marker was place on Fan and Mortar on the morning of 4-15-11.  As Polly
reported there was a good event cycle on Sunday.  I saw a weak event cycle
with two splashes in Main Vent on Monday.  Then for Wednesday and Thursday I
saw nothing but some occasional steam out of Main Vent.  On Friday
4-22-11 Butch Bach radioed the marker was in place at about 1020 or 1030.  I
took a risk and went to Fountain.  When I returned and walked down Fan and
Mortar had already erupted; sometime between about 1030 and about 1400 when
I arrived,  By 1400 all was quiet and dead.  Sigh, no walk up F & M this
trip.

Little Brother is active as Karen Low mentioned.  The intervals are between
one eruption every two minutes to two eruptions per minute.  The average was
about 45 seconds for the short time I watched.  Basin Spring is below
overflow.

More soon,
Stephen Eide
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