[Geysers] Trip Report April 29 to May 6, Black Sand and Biscuit Basins

[Stephen Eide]

Hello again,

For some reason I never did make it out to Black Sand Pool, once rain
stopped me, once it was a blizzard, and I think I just got distracted on
the third attempt.  I was told it was still thumping but I cannot say from
personal knowledge.  I did see Sunlight Geyser erupt both days I was in
Black Sand Basin, no jetting eruptions but bursts to 2-3 feet instead.
The intervals averaged four minutes, the durations were 4-10 seconds.  The
new feature that Jim Holstein reported beside Cinnamon Spouter was not
active for me, it just bubbled almost continuously.  Cinnamon Spouter
appeared to be back to its usual self, a perpetual spouter to a few feet
high.  The bubblers under the boardwalk out to Sunset Lake are still active
but it appears some vents are weaker, some are stronger, overall the total
activity appears about the same   The hot spring on the way to Emerald Pool
is still active.   Green Spring did not erupt for me and UNG BSB-2 appeared
to be dead with no water.  Handkerchief Pool, Handkerchief Geyser, and the
third vent in that line were active on one or the other of my visits.
(Sorry, Scott's book is on loan so I can't look up the name for the third
feature)  Cliff Geyser and Spouter Geyser were active as usual.  Whistle
Geyser was quiet with a slight overflow.

I Biscuit Basin the most interesting thing is the overflow from Black
Diamond now goes mostly out the side of the pool directly into Salt and
Pepper.  The Pepper vent is greatly weaker because of this, but the Salt
vent appears unchanged.  Only a small amount of the overflow goes through
Black Opel Pool Now.  Black Diamond appears to continue to reconstruct
itself.

Jewel had intervals in the 7-8 minute range and East Mustard had intervals
in the 8-9 minute range.  Shell Spring was active.  Avoca Spring was
erupting about once a minute, sometimes to only a foot high but sometimes
it was over six feet high.  I did not observe the features north of the
Boardwalk.  Coral Geyser continues to bubble down in its vent.  There is
something active out in the middle of the loop (?Fumerole Geyser?), not
erupting but there is a heavily steaming hole out there.  Rusty is its
usual active self.  Nothing out of Dusty.  I did catch a couple of
Caulifower eruptions, one that really was not an eruption, just water
surging in the pool.  The other was only a foot or two high.  However I
could not stay for long so it could have bigger eruptions that I just
missed.

Stephen Eide
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20120513/a381548c/attachment-0001.html>