Geyser Notes

I was doing some research to see if a book listed on eBay was worth a bid (it wasn't), when I came across some interesting photos of Steamboat Springs, Nev. The first three were taken by Don Hudson in 1986, a year before testing began on the powerplants that eventually destroyed the geysers there. I met him on the terrace one day during the the activity of 1986-1987, maybe even the day these photos were made. Note also that I might have some of the feature number wrong, as it has been a couple of decades since I last saw these geysers. I did check my maps, so I got at least the names of what I think they are correct.

Steamboat Springs #41s

Steamboat Springs #102

Steamboat Springs #42

In the background you can see the white fresh sinter and dark runoff that surrounded a string of geysers and springs, #12, #13, and the various vents of #14, #15 and #16. Back in the 1950 White reported geyser activity from the first two, while we observed sputtering from a number of vents from #15 and #16.

Steamboat Springs Main Terrace 1867

Posted by HKoenig at 19:02 | Permalink

So the camera was down for a few hours. When it finally came back (or at least, I was able to check and see it was back), what was I treated to? The camera operator focusing in on some dancing fools with cell phones. (13:18 on 16 Oct to be precise.) I've noticed more and more lately that the camera operators have been zooming in on people, like later that afternoon on a couple with the two large dogs walking away from the camera after an eruption. It's getting kinda creepy, actually. And not in a good way.

Why do I complain about this? Keep it up and there's going to be an incident that gets this camera turned off. Anybody remember the advertising fiasco? The NPS's first reaction is to always panic, assume the worst, and then to clamp down. By focusing in on friends acting stupid, the camera operators are only making sure that that incident, and a reaction to it, becomes more likely.

Posted by HKoenig at 18:34 | Permalink

It was interesting to see how much of the building of the new Old Faithful Visitor center had progressed over the summer. By the last visit a few weeks ago, it was apparent that the naked steel beams make it look like it's going to be a massive block sitting there. Maybe not as ugly as the old visitor center, but right now it sure doesn't look like much of an improvement, either. But will have to wait until next year to see how right or wrong that impression has been.

I also discovered that, unlike the old building, the new one will be named after someone. In this case, a someone who has no connection to the Old Faithful area or geyser. A person to be honored for... being the bureaucrat who pushed to get the new building built. A person who is not dead. A person who is still working for the National Park Service at the park headquarters in Mammoth. Talk about an advanced case of Monument Syndrome.

One naming tradition of Yellowstone is that geysers and other thermal features are supposed to never be named after persons. Sure it was violated a few times, and those examples, if anything, help reinforce this tradition. Fortunately, the days when the superintendent can go about naming just about one of every type of landmark after himself are gone, and we should not be resurrecting them by proxy.

Considering that the focus of the area is Old Faithful, the geyser, why is it necessary to name this building after anyone? It's not the Robert Reamer Inn. Sure all the other major buildings in the area are named after Old Faithful, and that can be a bit confusing if you don't quite get the difference between "lodge", "snowlodge" and "inn." Yet there has not been a need to differentiate them by naming any of them after people, living or dead. Visitors have never had a problem figuring what "Visitor Center" meant. (As for "Lower Hamilton's Store", that's a descriptive term there, referring to the now former owners, not any particular person.)

If the NPS really must name that building after someone, how about naming it after a person who is dead, who died in the performance of his duties in Yellowstone, and who had a close association with Old Faithful Geyser, the Old Faithful Area and geothermal features in general. What's wrong with the the name Roderick A. Hutchison Memorial Old Faithful Visitor Center, anyhow?

(Note: if anyone wants to organize such a naming effort, please let me know and I'll post contact info here.)

Posted by HKoenig at 18:27 | Permalink

Now that it's being controlled by a variety of people, I have a complaint about the aiming of the streaming web camera. I would prefer that it not be aimed with the intention of allowing people to pose in front of Old Faithful. I have it on to see geysers, not people making fools of themselves. Even better would be to position it so that the bottom of the frame is just above the tops of the crowd's head.

Posted by HKoenig at 21:59 | Permalink

The promised snow didn't appear, everything was only slightly wet this morning. But it was cold and overcast, and quickly got windy, too.

The Grotto marathon eruption ended overnight, and by the time I got there, Bijou was already back to erupting strongly and continuously. There was some indication that Giant might start having hot periods, but I didn't stick around. But on my way down there, I did have an animal encounter of sorts. As I passed by the grove of trees below Castle to the east, a couple of coyotes suddenly took exception to my passing by. They yelled at me the whole time I was in view, even when I got up to the Castle bike rack. This also set off all the other packs in the basin, so soon the whole areas echoed with yelps. In all the years of biking on that trail, both day and night, that was a first.

Since Grand was an empty crater, and Beehive's Indicator started while I was checking out Bijou, that meant that there was nothing to do in the Upper Basin, I decided to leave, but when Lynn Stephens told me she was headed for Great Fountain because it was probably due soon, I decided that I had the time to see my eruption for the year. I got there well into the overflow, and the start was pretty good. I guess it didn't realize I was there. I also forgot about parking and the wind direction there, but my truck wasn't in any danger this time.

On the return from my first trip to Yellowstone in 1982 with my then just purchased old truck, I got a nice rock chip in the windshield in a construction zone near Burns, Oregon. I then went 25 more years without another such hit. This time at least it was on the last return trip of the season, in the just completed construction zone around Rigby, Idaho. Oh, well.

Posted by HKoenig at 20:29 | Permalink

After yesterday, it was to be expected that the day would be a bit dull.

As I reported before, the night was warm. The weather prediction for today was for cold and rainy, but the only rain was in the morning, and nothing more than a few drops. The rest of the day was warm and blustery, with rain only returning at the end of the day. It's supposed to snow tonight.

The only real geyser news was that sometime during the night Grotto began its first marathon eruption since Giant's eruption on Tuesday. My mid-morning Spa had already had its eruptions, but Bijou showed little inclination to go to sleep. There were distinct Bijou shutdowns accompanied by some of the trappings of a hot period attempt, but that was only another indication that the platform was in flux.

Add in a couple of Grand eruptions, a Beehive and even some Daisys, and it made for a quiet day.

Posted by HKoenig at 19:19 | Permalink

On a normal morning, by 06:00 there's a certain amount of radio chatter. You get a lot of reports of eruptions on Geyser Hill or of larger features down basin, along with the occasional "switch to 5". This morning from when I awoke at 06:00 until 06:45, there was dead silence. I was wondering if my radio was mistuned or not working in some way, but Alan Friedman demonstrated that it was working just fine. He then got people down basin to confirm what all the vehicles in the Lower Ham's lot was saying (both the ones there and the ones missing). That Fan & Mortar had not erupted overnight.

It turned out to be a busy day. Grand had a nice two burst eruption, but the nearly three minute long second burst let us know that we could have had more.

Down at Grotto, there was quite a crowd waiting for an eruption of Rocket. Of course these were really people waiting for F&M. Over the period of about an hour, Rocket had several false starts before finally and reluctantly erupting. Unlike my experiences in the past, this Rocket Major did not start suddenly but at first looked like one of these "Rocket Minors" we'd been seeing.

After that, it was more Fan and Mortar. Some people stayed out there overnight, and so we knew definitely that there had not been any attempts at eruptions. After the Rocket Major, we were approaching 26 hours since the event yesterday. When I arrived, the people who'd been there were ignoring what to me (and others) looked like some strong activity from Fan. I asked, half-jokingly, "so tell me what its about this that looks so bad?" That when things got interesting. The vents of Fan really did look like the strong play that preceded eruptions back in the 1980s. After all the random "garbage mode", it was quite a difference. Tara belatedly put out a radio call, only to have F&M moments later force her retract it as the vents suddenly dropped in vigor and height. And went back to previous behavior.

Looking at the time, I decided that I could just as easily wait for any further events in the parking lot, and after a while, head out for the mid-day Grand. But first, a stop for Daisy seemed worthwhile. It was right after that eruption that I heard that splashing had been seen in Fan's Main Vent. Well, so much for my plans. Back to F&M. By the time I got there, the splashing had pretty much stopped. It wasn't long, however, before the Fan vents started, and they didn't follow the pattern of the last day-and-a-half. This time they were taking their time. Instead of Gold Vent following High vent within a minute, we saw several minutes of High splashing. Between these splashes the water level, just below the overflow lip, could be seen from the right locations. Finally, when Gold did start, the activity of High stayed vigorous, and its height seemed to increase.

By now I was getting to experience activity which I'd not seen before. In years past, when I'd seen a start, once the "lock" stage had been acheived, it was only a matter of moments before the eruption began. Here the lock seemed to drag on and on. In a few minutes High vent was erupting at at least 8 to 10 feet, with Gold going 4 to 6. Angle had turned to steam and still no eruption. Then Main vent began to have small surges, each one bigger than the previous. Even after the East vent began erupting it took Main about ten seconds to join in.

Mortar's vents showed a bit of water, then shut down. Not even steam. With a fairly strong breeze from the west, this gave us a clear, unobstructed and dry view of Fan for several minutes. Then suddenly Mortar came back to life, and everyone who'd tried for that closer clear view became wet. All three of Mortar's vents seemed to come and go independently of each other. While getting wet from Main vent meant getting hit on the fly by warm water, from Mortar it was a cold, soaking mist.

With the considerable warning, and it being the start of a three-day weekend, there was quite a crowd of gazers there. No census,but wouldn't surprise me that the number was close to one hundred. There must have also been and equivalent number of visitors who wandered up during the preliminary excitements. Fortunately Riverside wasn't near an eruption, because adding in that crowd would have made the walkway impassible.

The F&M eruption was short, only 29 minutes to the last water, and then there was a final huff of steam from all the vents. During the eruption we also got activity, of a sort, from South Norris Pool. The water level rose and was accompanied by boiling along the southwestern edge. It was almost an eruption.

After the eruption it was time to head for the Grand eruption which I had thought would be my place of waiting for the event. Turns out Grand had other ideas, as just as I was about to get on the bike to head out, the call comes that Grand has started. A 6 and a half hour interval. I did get there in time to see the second burst, which was perfectly timed just as the wind paused. An already tall burst was not cut down by wind.

Next up was Penta. It started a steam-phase eruption shortly after the Grand eruption. Most steam phases aren't really that interesting, but this one put out a lot of water. The runoff eventuallly reached beyond the walkway. The Top vent was roaring loudly, at times putting out nothing but steam. Meanwhile, Oval started to rise and burst to several feet. This activity lasted several minutes before the water level resumed its usual Deep Drain levels.

By this time it appeared that everything of interest that could erupt had done so, but not quite. After erupting some time during the night, Beehive had what had to be a short interval to finish off the day with a nice, but wind reduced water column.

Meanwhile, down at Giant, Bijou is starting to have shutdowns and Mastiff is showing that it can have "bathtub" hot periods. It wouldn't be surprising for Giant to erupt some time in the middle of the coming week. It's been iknown to do that in the past.

The weather prediction was for increasing cloudiness and increasing wet, and by sunset that had become obvious. But with the clouds came a warmer night. During the wait for the nighttime Grand, I never even felt the desire to dig out all the coats and blankets I would have put to use on a more typical night (like the day before...) We were also treated to occasional heavy gusts of wind and periods of dead calm, and a few spits of wetness.

Posted by HKoenig at 08:07 | Permalink

Fan & Mortar continue to show their contempt for me, and everyone else gets to suffer too.

Last night I learned that the previous eruption was not at 02:37, but four hours earlier, at 22:37. This was both good and bad news. Bad in that it meant that the window would open just about the time I arrived at dawn, and that I now had a chance of missing an eruption by being late. Good in that two short (less than two-and-a-half days) intervals would allow me to see the chance to see two eruptions.

F&M took the third option, which was to throw in a long interval after having several shorts. Shortly after I arrived it started having the kind of activity that can lead up to an eruption: it had a lot of powerful surging in the Main Vent, and three pauses before the Fan vents began erupting. But that wasn't enough, and we got no eruption.

Then it spent the next twelve hours not even trying to erupt. By sunset, there had yet to be anything seen from main vent. Most of the cycles had Angle vent playing the whole time. Quite disappointing, and just another reason to never be optimistic about that geyser.

Elsewhere, Grand is taking advantage of the shorter days to make sure that two of the three daily eruptions occur in the dark, with the third right in the middle of the day. The evening eruption was one of those where Grand was waiting for West Triplet, while W.T. was waiting for Grand, so neither wanted to erupt any time soon. But it was only a nine hour interval, so guess I should complain too much.

I did see the latter stages of a Tilt eruption, my first of the year. I also noticed that the hole across from Scalloped Spring has, for the first time I know of, water visible in it, about two feet below the surface. Just another reason that the board walk there will need to relocated. (The more likely alternative is a collapse, and then the NPS will shut it down for weeks while deciding what to do about it.)

Posted by HKoenig at 15:53 | Permalink

Weekend trip wasn't a total bust, but you'd think that by showing up at the start of Fan & Mortar's eruption window, I'd get to see more than one attempt at eruption. Which is what I got: over half an hour of the Bottom Vent erupting and pouring out water only to be followed by what was quickly and obviously not very strong Fan activity.

That happened around noontime on Saturday, and by sunset there hadn't been a second attempt. I was out almost at dawn (06:00) and by the time I left at noon, there still hadn't been any attempt.

There is something about those geysers that makes me have to work hard to see them. There have been some years when they've been fairly active, like 1997, where I could be there for weeks (months?) and still miss all the eruption starts. When I do see an eruption from the start, it sure feels like I've always had to spend at least a day down there waiting for it. Sure, I might walk up onto it, but that was the second day, the first being spent broiling on that gritty embankment. (Back in the days before the benches and boardwalk.

On the other hand, I did get to witness the next stage in the evolution of Sputnik and friends. Previously, Mary Beth Schwarz has been seeing them erupt at or near the start of a West Triplet eruption. On Sunday after Grand, at about a time when we'd have already seen West Triplet start, we saw two independent eruptions. They were twenty minutes apart, and twenty minutes after the second was when West Triplet started and we got a third eruption.

We also saw activity from a new vent. All of the previous activity had been by vents that were active back in the late '80s/early '90s, and correspond nicely to my maps and notes from back then. (I've got some Lynn Stephens photos from 1989 I'll try to scan and post, and see if I can still get at the disk files with my maps.) But this little sput, only a couple of inches high, is new. Or at least never caught my attention. Like Sput "a", it's out on the sinter sheet, on a slightly raised ridge that lead to, if I can remember correctly, the site of East Triplet, and is about half-ways between the two larger features. Now if we can only get East Triplet itself to try to clean itself out.

Posted by HKoenig at 19:03 | Permalink

Finally saw the reactivated sputs by Grand. These are in the exact same place as the sputs of the early 1980s, but their behavior has changed.

Back then they were pretty much active all the time up to a Rift eruption,which would kill them. Sort of like the way Percolator behaves even today. But now they only erupt for a few minutes. The activity, especially from the leftmost one,which probably is at the location of the original Sputnik, was going at least two or three feet high at one point. Also of interest is that the water starts out a muddy gray, only to turn clear as the eruption progressed. A good sign that they are still cleaning a decade or so's accumulation of debris out of their vents. And based on this behavior, I'm even more convinced that this is North Triplet we're seeing.

I also learned that an umbrella is no protection from Beehive when there's a still breeze right at you. I had a circular dry spot on my front, but my pack and legs were soaked. Fortunately, the day was warm and sunny, so it only took a few hours to dry out completely.

On Saturday Castle also pulled one of its pause eruptions. It really didn't look like it wanted to start, and after about 4-1/2 minutes, it finally quit. After determining that it was definitely quiet, I waited for the mass of people to leave and then followed them. But before that, I remarked to several people that it was known to restart at any time. I got partway down the hill when I heard it erupting, again. So after about a seven minute pause, it restarted and continued with the major eruption. And it was no surprise to learn that it did have the minor eruption during the night.

Otherwise it was a pretty dull weekend, but the point was to field test my new iPhone geyser-log program. In that regard, I was successful, as I got over four pages of notes on bugs, enhancements and things that just weren't going to work the way I had expected. Now to spend the next few weeks fixing all of them.

Posted by HKoenig at 17:46 | Permalink

Well, until 09:01 Friday morning I'd intended to visit the Park this weekend. That was when Mary Beth Schwarz called with the news, mostly bad.

Based on the few intervals there've been, when I heard that Fan & Mortar had erupted Tuesday morning, I figured that this weekend would be a perfect window for the next eruption. I also figured that the odds were better that it'd go long (like late Sunday) or during the middle of the night while I was there. If there was a short, I thought that it would be while I was driving into the Park. I never expected an interval a full day shorter than previous. That's a nasty way to return to the mean.

But this does fit one trend: F&M, when they wake up, don't do slow starts. If they are going to have short intervals, they start in with them immediately. If there're long, then don't expect them to short up as the summer progresses.

Oh, well, maybe next weekend.

Posted by HKoenig at 19:31 | Permalink

A morning of watching Fan & Mortar do nothing much persuaded me that I might as well head home. Plus I followed my rule of never letting Grand suck me in when heading out.

It was nice of Grand and Rift to keep Grand's eruptions synchronized so that at least two of the three eruptions per day took place during dark, or semi-dark conditions. This despite it being the time of year where it's dark for only about 7 hours.

But I was wondering about one thing. On my first night trip out to Grand I encountered a coyote in front of the Lodge. This morning it appears that it had found all the stuff one of the cabin guests had left outside, and scattered some of it about. Which got me to wondering. Years ago, every evening I'd hear over the radio scanner that one of the Protective Rangers was about to do a "food security" sweep of the Lodge cabins. And it wasn't unusual for them to make contact with someone just about every night. I've seen a lot of coolers and grills and other such stuff out in the open in the Lodge area. When did they stop the sweeps, and who gets sued when a food-related wildlife incident occurs? (The woman at the front desk when I checked out also said that the Rangers had finally collected the carcass sitting on the plastic bag behind my cabin. It'd been pretty well picked clean, so there wasn't any smell.)

One advantage to having the bison herd in along the Madison River is that people in the outbound lane have already seen bison, and aren't as likely to cause the two mile long backup that they had of all the people arriving in the Park.

Posted by HKoenig at 06:12 | Permalink

Yesterday evening Mary Beth Schwarz warned me that she'd seen the old bull bison who hangs around the area in the open space between the Lower Ham's Store and the Inn.

As I'm headed out for the middle of the night Grand, I stop at the top of the slope headed down to the Store to pull up the hood on my jacket. Off to the right, I hear some crunching sounds. The MagLite reveals that it's the bison, slowly making its way toward the Inn. Fortunately, it paused far enough from the trail that I could scoot on past.

Later that morning, the bison was busy again. This time marking his territory, leaving two large gooey hazards on the bike trail cutoff in front of the lift station and gas station. I saw it put down the second hazard, and it was almost like it was positioning itself before release.And since it's the time of year where there's not much rain, the bison's handiwork could be there for weeks.

Because of the quick trip, I did something I normally wouldn't do. When a call went out that Fan & Mortar had had the activity which is indicative of a possible eruption (River vent pause, Main vent splashing), I left Grand. Normally I'd just hope for the best, that Grand would cooperate and erupt soon, or that Fan & Mortar wouldn't erupt at all. If they did, then I'd just rationalize that I would have plenty more opportunities.The worst case is to leave, and end up seeing neither.

Which is exactly what happened. I got down to F&M just in time for things to die down. I waited to return just long enough that when Mary Beth made the call that the eruption was imminent, I was only as far as Grotto when it started. I could have lived with having gotten as far as the bend of the River. It's a nice view, and I watched the eruption from there. So when it quit after only about 9 minutes, I thought it would also be a great place to see a second burst. Which never came.

The rest of the day was spent watching F&M play around and do nothing. They didn't even try to look like they were going to erupt until about 8 hours after the first false alarm. Then Grand had another short eruption, but this time at least it was a two burst one.

The day did end nicely, however. While we were waiting for the evening Grand, it was obvious that the Sawmill Group was in Tardy mode. Which means that the next cycle has a good chance of there being a Penta eruption. I waited after Grand to see what would happen, telling myself that I could leave after the sun set. I didn't want to get sucked into waiting until after dark for nothing to happen. I was just about to follow through with my promise to myself, as things didn't look that great. Penta had overflowed a bit, but not the flood I remember seeing before a start. Sawmill had also started to overflow, and that's a sign I could do without. But then the left front vent bubbled, and I got sucked in. That's too good a sign, even with less than ideal overflow. There was one more, stronger series of bubbling, along with some bubbling from the right vent.Then the third time, the bubbling continued, with both vents getting stronger until the main vent finally joined in.

Posted by HKoenig at 05:33 | Permalink

I thought that Thursday was pretty boring, but Friday was even more so.

The day started promising enough, with a predawn but well lit two burst Grand. But then Beehive erupted before I could even go past Sawmill on the way to Geyser Hill. Which meant that the best use of my time would be to head in and take a nap.

The mosquitoes are bad, and aren't going to get better for a while. While sitting next to the dorm trying to upload yesterday's report, I splatter at least two of them who left crimson splotches. Well, I have experience worse. There was one trip coming back from Shoshone where I stopped at the Grand Pass spring only long enough to refill the water bottles. Every time I stopped they were everywhere, being held at bay only by applications of full strength DEET Cutter's. And even then some would get through.

Without a big feature or two to liven things up, these short trips can have a lot of downtime. If I were here for weeks, I'd have some other projects to fill in the time, or maybe take care of those maintenance tasks like doing laundry or cooking a real meal. It's my hope that Fan & Mortar fill that void for the next couple of days, and maybe for future trips this summer.

It also doesn't help when all the geysers erupt within a half-hour period. Between 20:00 and 20:30 we had eruptions of Grand, Beehive, Oblong, Daisy and Riverside. Castle had already gone a few hours earlier. And then the one geyser I wanted to see finish off the list, Rift, didn't put in an appearance, meaning I'd get to deal with it during the night.

My first night in the cabin area, there weren't any parking spaces. So I was surprised that when I got back from Grand, the place was empty, with space everywhere. Around 23:00 I found out one reason why: a large tour group arrived, with the usual dragging of suitcases and discussions of who goes where and banging doors.

Posted by HKoenig at 07:53 | Permalink

If I hadn't known that it had erupted the day before (at 14:33 on 02 July), I could have been fooled by Fan & Mortar's behavior this morning. Around 06:00, only about 16 hours after the eruption, I got to see a perfect example of post-eruption type activity. The water levels are low, which seems to make the normal splashing and surging that F&M are always doing even more vigorous. During the fifteen minutes I was there, Mortar's Bottom Vent was erupting most of the time, with some bursts to two meters. This produced overflow  down the various catchbasins and into the river. On the Fan side, the Main Vent as the star. As it always does, the surging in the two geysers dies down only to be followed by a quick restart. A number of these restarts were accompanied by Main Vent splashing well above its rim accompanied by explosive sounds. But none of the other signs of high water were there, so time to move on.

Grand appears to have had two long intervals in a row. The second, daytime one was accompanied by Rift. The Turban intervals leading up to the eruption started long but after a couple got progressively shorter until dropping just under 17 minutes. Some of the sputs between Rift and Grand have reactivated, but have only been seen for a few minutes, unlike past years when they could be active most any time.

Giant is dead for now. The platform was mostly dry. I was told that the puddles that I did see were probably due to huge cone-filling surges out the front that look impressive, but mean little. Mastiff is having the same sort of activity, but there are no real hot periods any more. Some day this summer, it's just going to erupt without warning, just like it's done in past slowdown years.

For a short trip, it doesn't make sense to not take advantage of a geyser I wouldn't put in the same effort if I were here for weeks or months. Since it was obvious that Grand wasn't going to be anytime soon, I went to Geyser Hill and waited for Beehive. Perfect conditions, dead calm but warm enough that the steam wasn't obscuring. I was able to stand on the boardwalk closest to the cone and see a double 210° rainbow, and only get wet once. (But the umbrella served its purpose there.) I may even have to visit the Lower Basin.

Posted by HKoenig at 08:26 | Permalink