Greetings and Salutations, I had a few days shaved off my trip, but I did manage a week in the park..   By May 6 the weather was almost t-shirt weather, hard to leave.  On 4-29 Beehive did the short interval, I should have caught the start of Beehive indicator but both times I was in the parking lot and it took me a while to realise that the splashing I was seeing was not Beehive but the indicator just behind Beehive's cone.  I called the indicator ie both times but I think it was off by only a minute or two of the true start time.  Beehive Indicatior 0635 ie, Beehive 0641 and later in the day Beehive Indicator 1658 ie, and Beehive 1704.  Beehive appears to be erupting about every 10-20 hours.  One day you'll get one eruption, the next you'll get two, then one, then two.  It'll be interesting to see Ralph Taylor's data when he gets to the park for the spring download.  Scott Bryan already meniioned this, but for the Beehive eruptions I saw a few included the bubbler just behind Beehive's cone and for others none of the bubblers were active.  I saw nothing out of close-to-cone either. As for the Giant eruption on 4-29, in the morning GHP 0938 D=3:14, GHP 1047 D=2:30, then a 4+ minute bathtub at 1205.  I left to catch Fountain and returned to the Grand area at about 1450.  I later learned Giant had at least one more bathtub while I was gone.  When I reached Grand it was about 8 hours from the last Grand eruption so I decided to wait at Grand, assuming (wrongly) that someone was at Giant.  Just after I sat down I saw Bijou on.  A few minutes later I saw Bijou off, so I waited for the GHP call (earlier that day it was taking several minutes for the water to rise in Mastiff and for feather to finally turn on).  A few minutes after that I saw Bijou back on, in a normal eruption so I assumed it was another bathtub or short GHP.  I watched Grand for a few minutes and the pool dropped just before Turban at 1501.  I looked down basin and saw two columns of water from Mastiff just over the height of Giants cone, I said to Tom "would you look at that!" after which Giant just climbed into the sky at 1502.   I don't know if it was a restart eruption or if the Bijou I saw was in steam phase and I just mis-interperated it as a normal Bijou.  It was a beautify sight with the wind blowing towards Riverside and the clear afternoon sun shining down.  I watch the whole eruption from Grand (1520, T2Q) and only remembered I had a camera about 30 minutes into Giant.  The ranger Orville Bach went down to Giant by Bicycle and later said he had the whole eruption to himself for about a half an hour.  I'm sorry, but I did not stay to catch the duration. In the upper basin, Bronze spring is cooler and growing bacteria in the crater.  Water from Giantess is running into Bronze Spring and I could not how much of its overflow was from Bronze and how much was from Giantess.  Silver Spring and Little Squirt are normal with intervals that appear to be about a week (based on very little data).  Big and Little Anenome are both active.  Plume some days had intervals over an hour, some days it was as short as 40 minutes.  Scissors springs are still active like discribed by Tara Cross last October but with less intensity.  East Scissor still boils perpetually with periods of increased boiling and overflow.  West Scissor will join in with weak boiling when the water rises and at times of peak overflow (about once a minute I think but I didn't time it, sorry).  West almost constantly overflows while East only overflows at the times of increased boiling.  Last fall the periods of boiling appreared to gradually increase to a more major boil a few feet higher than most about every five minutes.  This spring that does not appear to be true, occasionally one of the overflowing boils of East Scissor is mildly higher, but I could not detect any building to the higher, stronger boil, it just appeared to happen randomly.  The little red hole in GHG-3 (Red Dwarf?) was not active any time I looked at it, the major activity in this area was from the springs close to Arrowhead spring.  The little geyser above the boardwalk I noted last spring is now flooded with runoff from up the hill and appears to be dormant.  Arrowhead spring was full and lightly overflowing every time I looked at it.  The little bubblers across the boardwalk from Pot-O-Gold appear to be more active, they have a new runoff channel but I never caught them doing more than just lightly boiling.  Little cub and Lion appear to be there normal old selves.  Aurum appears to be erupting on 4-5 hour intervals.  Again, it will be nice to see Ralph Taylor's first download.  The little bubbling features by the boardwalk in front of Doublet pool were active on and off to about a maximum of six inches.  Pump is still Pump, and Sponge is still Sponge.  I did not see Plate erupt, it just sits there with water in the crater and gently rises and falls.  Model appears to be normal.  Giantess appears to occasionally have some large boiling and sometimes frequent boiling, but so far that's all.  Dome wasn't active for the week.  Castle had only one minor the week I was in the park.  Tilt appears to be drowned by Crested pool, it is receiving more overflow than last fall.  If you watch it for a while you will see it rise a bit and palpitate now and then, but no eruptions were seen.  There were Penta eruptions before I got to the park, but for several days Sawmill was in control of the group. On May 2 Scott Bryan put a marker on Penta, I think at about 1300 from my notes.  Later that evening at  about 1900 I watched a Tardy cycle that led to a drain without either Sawmill or Penta, but at that time I could not see a marker on Penta so I placed one before leaving.  In the morning on May 3 my marker was washed.  So either I did not recognize Scott's marker and Penta erupted once, or it is possible Penta erupted the afternoon of May 2 and again sometime overnight.  After that it was all Sawmill any time I visited.   I have to concur with Scott Bryan about the change in activity from West Triplet.  I often found it full and overflowing, sometimes lightly, sometimes heavily.  Also some times it would sit just below overflow.  It is greenish-brown in color and when it does erupt, the eruptions are weaker.  The long periods of overflow do not seem to make an eruption of Rift any more likely.  One other thing, I did not see Percolator all week.  I don't know if these two events are related or not, just that they occurred.  Lastly, Oval pool also appears to have greenish water. The rock in Topsoil spring has been removed (Thank you to whoever managed that) and it appears there was some damage to the side of the pool, but not much.  Topsoil appears to have some overflow or eruptive activity of some type, it has a run off channel along the boardwalk for about 6-8 feet.  Once when I came by it was wet, but I didn't catch it doing whatever it was doing.  Daisy some days did sub 2 hour intervals, and the next day 4 hour intervals just like last year.  It appears whatever pattern it has in the morning it keep for the rest of the day.  Riverside was mostly doing longs, but not exclusively.  The markers (2) placed on Fan and Mortar on 4-28 were in place the last time I looked on 5-4-08.  On 5-5-08 at 0840 I did stop and look at Flood and it was erupting but in a different pattern than I'm used to.  It would alternate between calm and boiling for less than a minute, then erupt for 2-5 seconds, then stop and go back to the calm and alternating boiling.  When I checked again at about 1130 it was doing the same type of activity.  I did see West Flood earlier in the week with stronger overflow, but the day I watched Flood it was below overflow.  I have no solid data on Till, but from the one eruption I saw and the times I drove by just before or just after an eruptions I think it is still doing about 11 hour intervals.  Now for Fountain.  First, here are the eruptions I saw plus a few that were reported.  4-29-08   0718 ie                            1302 D=30 4-30-08   1202 D-=9                      1725 D=31 5-1-08      1107 D=30                     1717 D=30 5-2-08      1111 D=31                     5-3-08      1015 ie vr                       1550 D=29 5-4-96      0901 D=33 5-5-08      1450 D=29 So the known intervals are 5:23 and 6:10 with likely triple interval averages of 5:54, 5:58, and 5:44.  Just looking at the daily time of eruption you get an average interval of about 5:45.  I think the likely range is 5:15 to about 6:30.  Again, it will be nice to see Ralph's data.  As for the other geysers in the area, sometimes Jet was active, sometimes Jet did not erupt until the last few minutes of Fountain's eruptions.  It doesn't appear that Jet matters one way or the other.  However, for all the eruptions I saw Spasm either had just started within 15 minutes of Fountain or Spasm was trying to erupt when Fountain started.  In fact, for three eruptions Spasm started a few minutes after Fountain started but before Fountain flooded out Spasm.  I think that the conditions that make an eruption of Spasm likely also appear to be the same conditions that make an eruption of Fountain likely.  Still, the best way to know when Fountain will erupt is to know the time of the last eruption.  I suppose Fountain could throw in a short or long like it has in the past, but I saw no evidence it was doing that.  I did see Super Frying Pan often, but my only conclusion about Super Frying Pan is that if you are at Fountain for about two hours, you are likely to see Super Frying Pan.  On 5-5-08 I did visit Norris sometime after Scott Bryan did.  Forgotten Fumerole was erupting about every 13 to 14  minutes.  Some  eruptions were only about ten feet tall, but others were over 20 feet and one appeared to be at least 30 feet.  It was hard to tell, because the eruptions also place a large amount of steam in the air.  It could be that the height varies over the course of a day.  The eruption starts with louder boiling and noise from the crater.  Then the first few splashes are low, gradually building to the largest splashes near the end of the eruption.  Then after a minute or so the boiling and noise increase again and it sounds like it should erupt, however I never saw any splashing.  From Karen Low's reports it appear she did see some eruptions at this time.  Then the crater is quiet until the next eruption.  One other observation, the mud thrown out takes about 8-10 minute to dry to a light grey color.  Otherwise in Norris Congress pool is down about five feet, Constant was active, Pear and Vixen were not active.  Echinus was not active either.  Echinus has two vents.  If I remember correctly when the vent closest to the run off channel is the most active, Echinus does not erupt.  When the vent farthest from the runoff channel is the most active, Echinus is active.  So, is this true or am I off base?  Poor Rubble geyser looks dead.  If I think of anything else I missed, I'll send another report.  Stephen Eide ---- Msg sent via CableONE.net MyMail - http://www.cableone.net