Week Three, Minus the Pictures...

Summit in white, Dylan of Workaholics, Inc.

I left my pictures on the summit! Got some really wonderful pictures this week, and had some amazing experiences.

We rode up in the new snow cat, which has much bigger windows and comfier seats. Mike also brought a guitar up to the summit, so I learned how to change strings and played a little blues. We watched a video with Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee which is pretty cool and a nice inspiration for anyone looking to learn the harp.

Our volunteers were Win Dodge, a very athletic and hilarious fellow with excellent pie-making skills, and John Bauhs, a witty personal chef who's served some very big names (the MWO observers, of course, are the most significant). We also had a group of German geography students from Ruhr and Berlin Universities up to the summit to do some research projects and see the mountain. Very cool people, good soccer players, and creative with shopping carts in parking lots...

We had some spectacular weather as well --at the beginning of the week, crazy rime ice that looked just like feathers and the spikes on a gothic cathedral. We built a snowman, Rimey, with the beautiful, fluffy snow that was on the deck. He survived the big storm which followed, although he lost his carrot nose and pipe. Winds increased to almost 120 mph and temperatures plummetted. The pitot anemometer kept getting ice into the tube, so that we had to go up to the tower and pump it out every hour for quite a while. When the storm passed, we were left with gorgeous weather --almost no winds, temperatures at around ten above zero, and little snow flurries with perfect dendrites from blue skies.

I took two hikes in the last couple days: one just down the hill to watch one of three fabulous sunsets over undercast skies, and another over to Mt. Clay to watch another of the sunsets. I'll have to let my soon-t0-come pictures describe the incredible clouds, light, and environment we were in. On the last night, Mike, John, and I slept out on the roof. For the third night in a row, the stars were out and twinkling, and winds were near zero. It was a perfect night for it --still a bit cold, but well worth cold toes.


Marty, taken by Dylan of Workaholics, Inc.

A quick note --the Lakes sent me a link to the photos that the Discovery Channel photographers took while up on the summit this past week! There are some really great ones of Marty especially.

I promise to have my pictures up soon!


Reflection in goggles, Dylan of Workaholics, Inc.

I went skiing for the first time on Saturday with my aunt Di and uncle Tomm up at Attitash! It was really tough at first --went down an intermediate hill from the top of the mountain on my first run and fell the whole way down --but I was gliding my way down the easy hills by the end of the day! Thankfully Di and Tomm were super patient with me, giving up their chance to go on the good runs to just slide down the little ones and make sure I didn't stab myself with a pole. We saw people doing crazy tricks on the terrain park, and some great, great clouds from the lift. I'm definitely going to try to go again soon, and I'd really like to learn to snowboard...