No question. It is Ski It Jr on the snowfield yesterday.
He had “won” a 4 person Mount Washington Observatory VIP tour at the Hannes Schneider Meister Cup silent auction two years ago and invited us to join him. And the stars finally aligned with everyone’s schedules and weeks ago we finally had a fixed date. All last week and into the weekend the forecast looked real bad. Lots of hand wringing going on. Down in the flatlands it was pouring Saturday morning with high winds. Missed the meteor arrival or whatever it was as we were driving. Arriving in the MW valley it turned into a nice Saturday afternoon and then some occasional showers with thunder Sunday. On top they had received 6″ of snow, followed by 2″ with high winds. Then 3″ Sunday & thunder snow with diminishing winds that night. Plowable snow with the drifts. Learned later lighting had hit the summit and knocked out the water system temporarily.
Monday morning it was clearing, partly sunny, 30 mph winds & 25°F on top. Things were looking up. We met our guide, Dr. Drew Bush, the Executive Director, at the base of the auto road, parked at the garage and 5 of us piled into a MWOBS-1 SUV with our gear & Ski It Jr’s snowboard. Our guide commented that the road was closed to the public right now above 5000 and we’ll have to see how far we can get. We might have to stop and move a van they use to block the road during snow clearing ops. We made a couple stops on the way up checking out weather instruments, old army & historical sites. We received a running discourse on the history of the mountain and all the entities that had been and are on the mountain. Currently there are five main entities: The federal goverment with the White Mountain National Forest, the Auto Road & Cog Railroad are private family businesses that own the land under their routes and perhaps a building or two at the summit. The state of New Hampshire which owns the Mount Washington State Park at the summit which most people know as the Sherman Adams Visitor Center. The Mount Washington Observatory, a private, nonprofit, member-supported institution. There are also small cell, radio & TV buildings and antennaes owned by those companies. The AMC also has a presence there but I do not believe they are land owners. They are all tightly locked in a competive yet symbiotic relationship.
The radio crackled (didn’t really crackle but it sounds better) and we overheard the road was most likely open to the top.
We really lucked out. Visibilty was 80 miles. I could easily spot Lake Sebago, etc… We passed a couple snow clearing ops and drove right up past the chained down Stage Office, location of the original observatory, and parked next to the main building’s back door. We went in the bowels of the building, met the volunteers who make meals, etc.. for the staff & us. We dropped some of our gear in the breakroom/kitchen area. There were a couple school groups on field trips on that had come up on the Cog so we had to slightly arrange our tour around them in the areas they were let into. First we went out and took a tour of the historic buildings, facilities and of course stand on the 6,288 feet summit. We went in and did the observatory museum, then went up & saw where the staff do their work and chatted with them. We had lunch with staff & volunteers. Met & petted the famous observatory cat Nimbus. Later we went down and up staircases, up a spiral stair case, two steel ladders thru a very low door out onto the observation tower deck then another ladder slightly ice encrusted, under a low railing up to the top platform which if I heard right over the wind is at 6,317 ft. We went down and out onto the main park obvy deck to learn about the instruments there, such as the cosmic ray experiment by UNH & the heli platform below the fuel tanks. After that we were free to do anything we desired. And we chose to drive down just past the tanks and park at the 6100 ft level. There was one car with a gentleman there removing his ski boots. I don’t want to insult him (or you if it was you) but he looked to be in his seventies, alone, & had just finished his runs. He had driven “only” 5 hours up from CT to ski. He gave us some info and we took a short hike to a nice east snow field. Ski It Jr took a couple runs as we sat and chatted and took in the amazing view. It looked nice and soft. He said it was nice on top, icy underneath and at the bottom.
Boy we learned so much about the rockpile & Observatory. It was awesome to see the inner workings. Everyone; the staff, volunteers were so welcoming and eager to answer questions. Thanks again folks!!
If you ever get a chance to do this, do it! And memberships & donations to MWOBS are always welcome.
I forgot to mention perhaps the more interesting tidbit for skiers. They are in the middle of a multiyear Regional Mesonet remote weather system installation across New Hampshire. Like the station shown below. https://mountwashington.org/weather/mount-washington-regional-mesonet/
Nice topo map in that Mesonet page, huh? Covers the whole world.
They plan to offer ski areas customizable versions of their Current Summit Conditions page tailored to their ski area for them to use on their websites or base monitors. Likely first candidates could be Black, Bretton, Cannon or the Vails. I’d bet on Black.
