[Geysers] Geyser Report 6/6

[Lynn Stephens]

THIS REPORT IS FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF THE READERS OF THIS LISTSERV AND IS NOT TO BE REPRODUCED FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE, INCLUDING PUBLICATION IN THE SPUT.
 
Depending on the weather tomorrow, today may have been my last day of geyser gazing for this trip, so this may be my final report.  (I'm leaving either Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning, again, depending on the weather.  I plan to be back for a few days around July 4th weekend, but that will be a camping trip with two grandchildren, so won't include any data collection, reports, etc.)
 
Great Fountain:  Electronic time this morning (0150e) plus this afternoon's eruption (14:37), has brought the mean since the road opened to 13h11m.  Closed intervals have a median of 12h29m.  Five (thank you Barb Lasseter and Maureen Edgerton for providing two of the data points) overflow times varied from a minimum of 79 minutes to a maximum of 112 minutes, with a mean of 95 minutes.  (I also had one other overflow >97 minutes.)  I have not seen any superbursts.
 
Fountain continued on its 6-7 hour intervals again today.  (Yesterday evening's eruption had one of those late in the eruption big bursts that sent a huge wave of water down the runoff channel.)  I saw this morning's eruption; the afternoon eruption started the same minute as did Great Fountain (Maureen had some unkind words for Fountain as she saw the steam cloud go up.)  I did not stay for the evening eruption since I estimated it would be sometime between 9 and 10 pm.
 
Till--I got a Till major this morning--The five intervals were just 2 minutes shy of 45 hours.  This evening's interval was 9h05m.  There were a couple times when Till had a double interval of 9h20m, and the one closed interval of 8h51m.  Using 9 hours +/- 15 minutes worked well for closed intervals.  Using 9 hours to roll forward 4, 5, or even 6 intervals also worked well; I never had to wait more than 30 minutes for an eruption.
 
Jewel--I was going to get several Jewel intervals today, but Beehive surprised me, so I only got one closed interval--11m44s.
 
Since the weather was nice today, I had hoped for one last fair weather Atomizer major eruption and a Beehive eruption.  I walked up to Artemisia/Atomizer.  Artemisia was just about to reach the point of overflow.  Atomizer's cone was bleached white.  So I turned around and immediately left  As I was walking back down the trail, I heard a strange noise to my left.  It took me a few seconds to realize the noise was the sound of tearing grass.  A HUGE bull bison was about 6 feet off the trail from me.  Thankfully he ignored me as I tried to quietly slink past him since the small trees between us, although large enough to effectively hide him from me, would not have stopped him from stomping me if he had so desired.  I'm quite glad he was more interested in eating than defending his patch of grass from me.
 
The nice weather days brought out many little bugs yesterday, and mosquitos today.  Temperatures are supposed to drop 20 degrees or more tonight/tomorrow with more rain on the way.  The nice weather has also raised the river levels such that the meadows at Biscuit Basin and 7 mile bridge are turning in to lakes again.  The snow bank at the entrance to Whiskey Flats picnic area has melted; the stretch of water across the entrance road is getting narrower; but the downed trees have not yet been removed.  The level of Whiskey Flats Lake appears to be very slowly dropping, but there's still plenty of water there and several different types of ducks have made their homes there.
 
I saw Jeffrey shootiing stars and strawberry plants in bloom yesterday and there are blue gentians in bloom near Belgian Pool.
 
Thanks to Barb's call of "Water in the Indicator" and a 19 minute Indicator, I had time to get from Jewel to my pickup to the Inn Parking Lot to the overlook so I could see a final sun-lit Beehive eruption today, all without speeding and not too much cursiing at the person who couldn't decide whether to turn right or left onto the main road from the Biscuit Basin parking lot, passing up several opportunities to enter onto the main highway, allowing those of us waiting behind him to also go on our way.
 
I'd also like to thank Barb for her radio call giving us the Beehive and Grand times as she reached the Lower Basin on her way out.  (I had grabbed the radio with the "I can receive but not transmit battery" when I migrated to the end of the Great Fountain boardwalk, so I couldn't respond to her when she made the call.)  Some visitors had abandoned Grand for Great Fountain and were debating whether to try to hurry back to the Upper Basin for Grand when Barb's call came.  They were quite appreciative of the information, as was I.
 
And, since this may be my final post, thanks to all the gazers who provided information, friendship, etc. during this trip.  A special thanks to Byron who managed to get the rear door to my canopy open this afternoon so I'll be able to load stuff in to transport it home!
 
Lynn
 
   		 	   		  
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