This weekend I took a long-anticipated trip to the top of Mount Washington.  It was a weekend Edutrip run by the Mount Washington Observatory.  I heard about the trips a few years ago, but it wasn't until this fall that I pulled the trigger and signed up.

In preparation I bought lots of gear (non-cotton layers, jackets, boots, crampons, etc.) and got myself in better shape.  If things go perfectly, you don't need all of the equipment.  But they were very clear that things don't always go perfectly.  In those cases you need to be able to hike out safely in severe conditions.

At 8AM I arrived at the bottom of the Auto Road.  The picture above is from the parking lot.  It was cool: 20F or so, but not bad.  While it was sunny at the bottom, the top was clearly "in the clouds."  We weren't going to see the sun for a while. A 24-second video of the scene. (The picture above, by the way, is an autostitched panorama created from 5 photos)

We shook hands and met each other.  There was the group leader, a group assistant, the snowcat driver, 8 Edutrippers, and a reporter from Germany.  We walked over to the garage and the gear was loaded onto the snowcat.  One person rode up front with the driver, and the 10 of us packed into the back.

We stopped a couple miles up the road to check out the sights.  As you can see, we're close to he treeline with only twisted shrublike trees.  The ground was pretty icy with the results of the melting from a couple weeks ago.  We were told that several feet of snow had melted away during the warmup.  A 16-second video of the scene.

We loaded back up and kept going.  The driving was clearly getting trickier. I'd look out the side window and watch snow clods dislodged by our track bounce off the road . . . and down, down, down, hundreds of feet down below!

We reached long stretch of road covered with banks of drifting snow.  The road had to be plowed flat before we could continue.

A bit about plowing: You can see that the snowcat has a plow on the front.  But, it isn't like a plow like you're used to.  The snowcat isn't trying to actually clear the snow down to pavement; the cat is just trying to flatten it out so that it can drive over without tipping.

It works like this: the driver lifts the blade and drives forward onto the snowbank.  He drops his blade and shifts into reverse, dragging the snow back with him and leaving a flatter path in front of him.  He then drives forward, packing the snow he just pulled backwards, and repeats.  So, the snow isn't pushed off the road.  It's dragged around, flattened, and converted into "road" surface.  It's not a quick process, especially when the road is covered by 8-foot drifts and there is a few-hundred-foot fall if you screw up.

The constant back-and-forth has been known to cause motion sickness.  Rather than clean out the back of the cat, the driver sent us on our way on foot to walk ahead of him.

We pulled out our ski poles and started walking.

The walk was nice.  It was cold, but not too bad.  The soft snow and steep grade got you warm pretty quickly.  I unzipped my jacket partway, and eventually even took my hat off for a minute or two at a time to cool off.

We only walked a small fraction of the way up, but it still gave a sense of satisfaction.  We got through the worst of the drifts and the snowcat caught up with us.  We elected to hike a bit further on.

Eventually the snowcat driver waved us back and we loaded ourselves back into the snowcat.

I didn't get any more pictures of our trip up the mountain.  We soon climbed into the fog.  There's not much value in a picture of the inside of a cloud taken from inside a frosted snowcat window.  We arrived at the semi-sheltered front entrance and hustled inside.

If you've been to Mount Washington to the summer you'll recognize the room on the left.  It was weird to see it totally empty.  It felt even weirder to grab a table and spread all of your clothing out!  The living quarters are far too small to accomodate a dozen people's drying clothes.  So we used the rotunda as our staging area coming in and going out.

We brought a few items (like sleeping bags) into the living quarters.  We met staff and volunteers and had the first of our weather "classes."  We soon returned to the rotunda and put on layers for our first trip outside on the summit!

On the left is the view out the rotunda win- dow.  See anything?  Look closer.

It was a fox!  All curled up with his nose tucked under his leg, having a nap.  While we were looking, someone made a loud noise (OK, it was me - I laughed at someone's joke).  The fox lifted his head, looked sleepily around, and went back to sleep.

5 degrees and 30 mph winds, and the thing can sleep on a rock!

We went outside onto the deck.  It was a different world than the one we'd left 4600 feet below.  As you look at these gray pictures, remember that they were taken at same place and the same time as the ones above.  Only two hours have elapsed since we entered the clouds.

The wind is strong, but not enough to knock you off balance.  Visibility is terrible.  The person 20 feet away is clear, the but the person 20 feet past that is a haze, and the person 20 feet farther than that is a shadow.

We walked around the deck for a while and looked at the observation tower.

The ice was pretty interesting all by itself.  It's rime ice.  The temperature of the air is well below freezing, but it still has water vapor in it.  (Water vapor is different from water crystals - this is liquid water, in tiny tiny tiny amounts, mixed into the air).  The wind blows the air into an object and the liquid water in the air freezes on contact, icing the surface.  As the process repeats, the ice gets thicker.  It grows into the wind.  This is pretty odd, when you think about it - things generally point away from the wind, not growing into it.

It grows on everything.  Your clothes, your jacket.  The hair growing on your nose which is otherwise invisible suddenly turns thick and white, coated in rime ice.

On the left, see rime "feathers" growing off the wall and into the wind.

After a while we went into the observation tower, up the stairs, and into the observation room.  We looked briefly at some of the equipment being used there before going up another flight of stairs to the tower roof.

The roof consists of a narrow walkway around the instrument tower.  There is a ladder up onto the instrument tower.  The instrument tower has a metal railing to keep you from getting knocked down by the wind.

The tower was like the deck, but turned up to eleven.  There is no hiding from the wind up there.  When you're on that tower, you're the highest person in the northeast.

My pictures aren't that great.  All I can say is, imagine trying to take off your heavy glove, leaving your hands protected by a thin glove liner.  Then unzip a jacket pocket where you're trying to keep your camera battery warm enough to keep a charge.  Turn it on, point, and shoot.

Did I mention the 40mph winds, the 5 degree temperature, and the ski goggles?

We came down off the tower and hiked a bit around the summit.  We looked all the buildings (Yankee house, Tip-Top house, old observatory, site of the generator fire, etc.)

The blowing fog was a constant reminder of how easy it was to get disoriented and lost.

At one point the clouds blew off enough for us to glimpse the blue sky above us.  It was a reminder that it was still daytime, no matter what our eyes were telling us.  The moon had risen already.  Still, you couldn't see anything around you - it was all fogged in.

We went inside for more "classtime."  We had a wine and cheese break at 5, and then a tour of the weather room.

The weather room was particularly interesting to me.  The staff observer patiently answered our questions.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the cat, Marty.  The Observatory has had a string of semi-famous cats.  When Nin retired last month it was picked up by the AP, CNN, Fox, and worldwide outlets.  Marty arrived at the Observatory just Wednesday, so he was the new thing.  I report that Marty is very inquisitive and will climb into anything.  He didn't quite know what to do with the Edutrippers - they weren't trustworthy, in his opinion.

We had dinner, and then most of us took another trip out on the deck.  No pictures from that one.  The inside of the cloud doesn't look very interesting in the dark.  We also heard about someone who died on the mountain earlier in the weekend - another reminder of the weather.

We all checked the forecast before we went to bed.  (It's pretty easy when you have dinner with three meteorologists).  The temperature was expected to drop and the wind to increase.  I was hoping for 100 mph, but the forecast wasn't with me.  The fog was expected to linger.

I woke up and checked the instruments.  The temperature had dropped to -15F and the winds were up to 50 mph or so, with gusts to 65.  The told us that we had to be more careful today - no exposed skin at all.  Frostbite comes very quickly in those conditions. I lounged around and waited for breakfast.

Just before 8, our trip leader came down and said that the clouds had temporarily cleared off, but they didn't know how long it would last.  I went upstairs and looked out the window.  One glance was all I needed.  I got dressed as quickly as I could and raced outside with a few other Edutrippers.

It was just fantastic outside.  The wind was howling.  You couldn't stand up straight.  You couldn't walk straight.  The clouds were below us, whipping past.  Holes opened and closed in the clouds showing the valley and lower peaks.

I didn't get too many pictures.  I had put on a second wind-breaking jacket, and it was even harder to pull out my camera and keep the camera warm.  Ice formed on the camera as soon as I'd take it out.  And my hand froze in seconds, even with the glove liner.  Taking pictures with the heavy gloves was hopeless.  I didn't spend much picture time, and just enjoyed the spectacle.

As we stood (leaned), marveling at the weather and the view, a raven flew overhead.  The temperature had dropped to -16F, the winds had increased to 75mph, -58 windchill, and the bird was just cruising along.

I took a few more pictures that morning, mostly from inside the building.  I didn't really get any going down the mountain.  We were too frosted on the windows and there were no stops for sightseeing.