An Autumn Above the Clouds on Mount Washington

By Cassie Farnsworth

I don’t know how many times in life you get to say “it was exactly what I hoped it would be,” but my internship on Mount Washington was undoubtedly one of those rare moments. From the moment I first learned about the Observatory’s internship program, I had a feeling it would be a perfect fit. What I didn’t anticipate was just how deeply this experience would impact me.

I arrived in September, right as the mountain was preparing to become busy with fall foliage visitors. I was giving multiple tours a day, meeting so many curious and enthusiastic people, and soaking up every conversation. By late November, though, the building had closed for the season, and the summit became quiet. I went from seeing hundreds of strangers a day to sharing the mountain with the same five people, which had its own peaceful sort of rhythm.

The weather was also on a journey of extremes. September had us in drought conditions with persistent high pressure. It was beautiful but meteorologically boring. We nearly tied a record high temperature for several days in October, which was exciting in a way, but also disheartening as fire danger concerns were elevated and fall foliage struggled. For the record, a “dull” foliage year in New England is still basically maximum vibrancy by Ohio standards, so I wasn’t too bitter about this fall. But by the time my internship wrapped up, the summit was buried beneath 25 inches of snow and ice and well on the way to reaching a new record snowfall total for the month of November.

In my introductory blog post, I wrote that stepping onto the summit felt like entering another world with a dreamlike quality. Somehow, that feeling only intensified as the season went on. There’s one moment I know I’ll carry for the rest of my life: standing in the tower at sunrise, the summit coated in its first layer of rime ice, with the sky glowing above a blanket of undercast cloud cover stretching in every direction. I’m actually slightly concerned, and maybe a little amused, by the fact that there may be nothing in the future that will ever be quite as spectacular as that morning.

Even daily life transformed quite a bit throughout the internship. Early on, I spent a few evenings hiking in the alpine zone; by November, I was curled up in the living quarters, working on jigsaw puzzles with Nimbus alternating between sitting on my lap and sitting on the puzzle itself. I also gained enough snow shoveling experience by the end of the internship to put it on my resume as a skill of maximum proficiency. Side note, if you’re ever in need of a team bonding activity, a way to release endorphins, or a brain-break, I would highly recommend shoveling snow.

My research took its own journey, as well. I arrived with the goal of completing a high-wind climatology for autumn at the lower elevations of the White Mountains. But as I learned more about wind impacts and observed the actual behavior of leaves across the region, the project shifted. By the end, I was developing a new set of methods showing that leaves fall when their biological timing says they should, not simply when wind speeds become moderately strong. This project was more of a struggle at times, but one that came to a gratifying conclusion.

I knew these three months would fly by, and they did. But what I didn’t expect was how much joy, wonder, and growth would fit into such a short window of time. I left the summit profoundly grateful for the people I met, the science I learned, the landscapes I witnessed, and the sense of belonging the Observatory gave me. I will forever cherish my time on Mount Washington, and you can count on me to be looking for any excuse to return to the White Mountains from this day forward.