<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)"> <style>  </style>  </head> <body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple> <div class=WordSection1> Sorry for the delay but its been hard getting back to work from a 2 week trip.  I was in the park September 4-19 and had a great time watching geysers and meeting friends.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> In Biscuit Basin, Avoca Spring was having strong eruptions 23-32 minutes apart.  When it had a stronger eruption it sometimes had a series of big eruptions a minute or two apart.  The thermal spot in the parking lot now has a permanent wooden railing around it and more of the access road out of the parking lot appears to be degrading due to the thermal activity.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I only saw 3 full Fountain eruptions.  On two occasions Jet started late in Fountains eruption and the other time it started right after Fountain quit, so Jet seemed to be much less active than last year.  Mornings Thief was active when I could see it, erupting in the first few minutes of Fountains eruption like last year.  Sometimes it just boiled up and failed to erupt for real.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I saw one Gemini series on 9/14 with intervals of 8-10 minutes.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Great Fountain was having stronger eruptions than I remember being reported last year.  I saw three superbursts, one with a blue bubble too.  Other people were reporting good eruptions as well even if there wasn't a superburst.  There were a couple of occasions when Gt Fountain went into overflow for 10+ minutes only to crash a while later.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> In the River Group, Dark Pool was active with intervals of 9 - 10 minutes.  Mound intervals 16-28 minutes.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> On Saturday 9/11 several of us went to Shoshone.  Lion had intervals of 75-90 minutes with durations of 5 minutes.  The whirlpool drain was always fun to watch, going one way to start and then switching to the other direction before the crater drained.  Bead had an interval of 2h11m and duration ~90s.  Also active were Mangled Crater, Small, Diverted, Minute Man, Bronze, Iron Spring, Gourd, and Shield.  Double was splashing when we arrived and erupting when we left 6 hours later, duration ~6 minutes.  Gourd and Shield erupted most of the day but quit before we left and we got to see Five Crater erupt on the way out too.  Frill, Knobby and Hydra did not erupt, they just had intermittent overflows.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> On 9/13 another expedition went to Geyser Creek.  Avalanche was active, intervals 7-10minutes.  Big and Little Bowl, Anthill, Tiny, and Bat Pool were active.  We also went over to Phoenix.  When we arrived the water was visible low in the crater and we waited and gave us a time to leave assuming nothing happened.  about 10min before we were due to leave Phoenix went into overflow so we stayed a bit longer and it erupted after 18min of overflow.  Its eruption is pretty long and we set a deadline of leaving at the 80min mark.  Right at that time the eruption died down and ended after a duration of 61min.  Nice way to end the geyser gazing and start the hike back out.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> On 9/15 we were down to just Jake Young and I to go to Heart Lake.  Deluge water level is way down.  In the Fissure Group, two vents in the fissure were active as well as Shell, and Splurger.  Pit was active with intervals of 7-10minutes, the biggest eruptions were just able to wet the top of the crater.  Glade was having "Aurum-like" belches of water that wet its cone every few minutes and it was overflowing most of the time (except after the bigger splashes).  It did not erupt while we were in the geyser basin.  Lower down, Ivory was still inactive but there were four vents on the edge of Ivory's vent that were splashing weakly an inch or 2.  I hiked on down to the lake intending to go to Rustic only to find that the area was closed due to bear activity.  Rustic did appear to be active based on visible steam clouds.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I visited Norris on 3 occasions and Fireball and Vixen were active on each visit.  Vixen intervals were mainly 3-21 minutes with durations  of 5 seconds to 2 minutes.  Fairly easy to predict the intervals based on the duration of the prior eruption.  I only saw one Major with duration 3m45 seconds that put pooled water in the trail.  There had been at least one longer major on one of my visits because there were pools of water in the trail all the way down to the creek but I had already missed that eruption.  Pearl was an active geyser erupting from a full pool.  Orby was active and Yellow Funnel Spring had a low water level and was splashing.  I only saw single eruptions of Constant on each trip, so the intervals were longer than an hour.  Whirlygig had been reported to the rangers about every other day when I checked.  On one visit Fireball erupted about every 15 minutes for  5 minutes at a time.  On another visit it splashed for over 20 minutes before having a full eruption for 5 minutes.  I did not see Pinto or Arsenic.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Those are the main things I pulled from my notes that have not been reported elsewhere.  Looking forward to next season...<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Graham Meech.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> </div> </body> </html>