Jim of State Park, Althea (a volunteer), Ryan Buckley (former intern), and Mike watching the sunset on Tuesday evening. An excellent sunset to finish off a gorgeous week.
This week was certainly a nice one --the weather has become summery, with convective clouds building on most days and even some thunderstorms in the early evenings. Since I've had such a good time the rest of my weeks up, though, I'm really buckling down these last couple weeks to get what I want done on my research project. I've been making all kinds of stat calculations on the boundary layer figures I've gotten from models, been reading up on what other people at other particulate sites have found, and have been comparing weather parameters and other data to some specific pollution events in our area. I still feel like there's an overwhelming amount of work to be done, and I hope that other interns are interested in continuing with these analyses in the future. I found out that the Alpine Project, which is being continued by the Appalachian Mountain Club (Georgia, my research mentor, works for them), the observatory, and several academic institutions, will be working on questions similar to those I've been asking. I'm hoping that the data I've put together will give a starting point to some of the work they'll be doing.
We had almost no snow on the summit at the beginning of the week... we got the snow and rime back, however, over the weekend!
Besides all that, I did get to spend some quality time playing guitar with Mike and out hiking with our volunteers, Althea and Paul. We got to go on a couple of good jaunts, and ended up walking down the auto road on Wednesday because there were lots of meetings that the three of us didn't need to be involved in. Some of the flowers and shrubs are starting to come up on the mountain, especially below treeline. Toward the summit, bright red bushes are intensifying in color and make for a really nice contrast with the lime green lichen on grey rocks. Farther down the mountain, we saw patches of crimson trilliums –the ones out west are primarily white. The auto road has opened to the public to halfway, and it was strange to see cars coming up. This weekend will be really full at the summit, as the cars will be allowed to come up all the way. Brian says there are maybe a thousand or two people who come through on a given summer weekend, and Memorial Day weekend (this weekend) is usually even more packed. It’ll be a big change having visitors around, gift shops and the museum open, and tours going on. I have to admit that I’m not all that excited about giving tours, but I’m really glad that I’ve had so much time to get to know the building and the area beforehand. An extra cup of coffee to get me going in the morning should make it easier.
Making our way down the road on (I think) Friday night toward Nelson Crag (the farthest point out to the right). We took the rocky way down and the road back up.
Brush (much brighter red in actuality) on the rocks out on Nelson Crag
Sedge on the rocks toward Nelson Crag. It's tough to avoid walking on this stuff, but the alpine plants are rare and very old.
A rainbow in the clouds over Carter Notch
I saw my first thunderstorm up close this week, which was pretty spectacular. The bolts were up close and extremely brilliant --bright pink and very broad. The lightning sounded different in that it was almost tinny (trash can lids being slammed together is the way Ryan put it), and it was often very dampened by the wind and moisture. The guys weren’t all that into the storm since they’d seen several before, but they did have to keep tally of the last bolt so that they could report the end of the storm. We were actually inside the thundercloud, so there wasn’t much to see between flashes, but it was still amazing to see. The night before, Mike and I had taken a stroll down the auto road, which ended at Nelson Crag with a spectacular view of a passing ominous cumulonimbus. We saw one flash from it, and watched the sun go down beyond it. There were too many phenomena to watch at once, ending with a glowing, and almost full moonrise to the east. Hopefully we’ll see more nights like that this coming week...
The convective clouds were really beautiful this week --this is, I think, the night that the thunderstorm hit the mountain.
Looking west toward Bretton Woods and green hills after our snow cover returned for a few days.
The obs deck covered in snow and rime once more, with a nice undercast to go with it.
Looking over the rimey rocks of the southwest end of the summit toward Bretton Woods
Looking toward Monroe and the South Presi's after our brief snow cover and clearing.
Paul and Althea, the week's volunteers
One last snowy self photo.
The snow cover brought back the wintry feel to the mountain for another couple days, but the convective clouds and blue skies above persisted. The cog (you can see the tracks here in the foreground) starting running this week, bringing people to the summit twice a day. The smoke from the cog looks pretty nasty, but apparently they've got a biodiesel engine and Mike made the point that the cars pollute the air a whole lot more. Althea, Paul, and I had a bit of a discussion on the walk down on Wednesday about what could be done to alleviate some of that. I'm not sure how I feel about keeping cars or some cars off of the summit, but I do think that the health of such a beautiful place should be considered before its value to us...
The ice climbing runs in Huntington Ravine, mostly discontinuous. You can see some of the East snowfields at the top, though, which some of the crew got a couple runs out of this week.
The view from Nelson Crag as we watched a thunderstorm roll by to the right and the sunset to the left.
East snowfields and the rocks on the crag, looking up to the summit at dusk.
This off-week, we hiked up Mount Chocorua (about 3500 ft) and I got to explore this area in its non-snowy season. The river out front of my house is flowing beautifully and the trees and brilliant shades of green all over the hills and valley. The North Conway area has a surprising number of vistas and parks to see in fair weather, including gorgeous, smooth waterfalls and rocky ledges overlooking the valley. Ed O’Malley, our volunteer from a few weeks ago, drove me around for a few days, finding new places to take pictures and take in the view. We even made it to the Maine coast one day –it was so nice to finally see the ocean! It’s going to be really nice to get back to my rocky west coast shorelines, but I’m definitely going to miss this place.
And now for the sappy part…
I’m hoping to go on a few more adventures next off-week before I head down to Connecticut, so I don’t know when I’ll be posting again. This has been one of the most exciting and changing experiences I’ve had so far, and I really hope that I can continue enjoying life the way that I’ve learned to out here. It’s going to be tremendously difficult to say goodbye to the people who have invited me into their homes and gone out of their ways to make my internship so wonderful. I don’t really think that I could ever tell them how much this has meant to me, or really express how thankful I am to have been given this time here. Mike, Brian and Ryan have become like brothers to me. Mike has taken me on many more hikes than I can remember, and taught me an incredible amount about being in the mountains. Despite my reservations about rock climbing, I know that I wouldn’t have been able to do that a few months ago –I’m certain that his free spirit and willingness to take on whatever adventure whenever it comes at him have rubbed off on me a bit. Brian has been a great mentor, answering all my questions and giving me a few physically challenging tasks, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. His work ethic and organization has kept me motivated to do my research and summit duties, but he’s also been extremely generous in giving me rides and inviting me to do things on off-weeks. While all three of the guys know a lot about weather, Ryan has been my go-to man for meteorology questions. He’s not only an expert on seemingly all phenomena that crossed our radar screen, but he’s also great at explaining them. From the basics of frontal movement to derechos and cloud coding, he’s the man to ask. I wish that I could have gone on more hikes with him (he was great to have there on the summit hike, but missed out on Chocorua), but I’m glad to have been on his shift and to have had someone to share my west coast heritage with. Cara, Chris, Jordan, Pontcha, Marty, Wayne and buddies, summit volunteers, state park employees, and everyone at the WDC and here in Glen have been so much fun to be around. I hope that I make it back here sooner rather than later because I’m going to miss you all so much. I’m certain that I’d go a little more nuts than all of you are living in this area, but I’ve felt very at home these past few months thanks to you all. May future interns get a similar, fantastic experience, and may the summit remain the lovely, lively place it has been for so many generations of weather and mountain dorks.
Sunset toward the end of the week --this was really good one, although Ryan only rated it a two. There's no way this was only a two. I've gotta wonder what kind of crazy sunsets he's seen on this mountain...
Virga to the southwest at sunset, dissipating as the sun goes down (another tidbit from Ryan).
Sunset at the end of the week overlooking two of the many lakes we can see from the summit.
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