An Anomalus Day on the Summit

2012-10-29 16:27:59.000 – Stephen Lanciani,  Summit Intern

Snow stakes along the Auto Road

With all the talk of winter coming, conditions worsening, and more recently of Hurricane Sandy, I want to take a break for a minute to talk about something different…a near-perfect day that we had on the summit this shift! On Friday, October 26th we set a new record daily high temperature of 55 degrees, breaking the previous record of 52 degrees set in 1971. Yes, this was nice, but the fact that the sun was shining bright and winds were almost calm for the entire day made it even better. Joe, our volunteer this week, and I went for about a two mile walk down the auto road to fix some of the fallen wooden stakes (seen to the left of the road) that mark the road in the winter. About halfway down to the hairpin turn I had to shed some layers and was just wearing a long sleeve shirt and work pants. Joe was even down to just a t-shirt and some work pants, and the temperature increase as we descended was evident. By the time we had stood up, hammered, and rock-supported the posts, we had both broken a sweat. This was one of the last things I imagined I’d experience in the last week of October on the rockpile. We decided to take advantage of the situation and looked out over the Great Gulf for a few minutes, discussing the near-infinite visibility and the sheer beauty of the Presidential Range. We then made our way back up to the observatory, making sure to get back in a timely fashion, but also making sure to enjoy the great outdoors. The rest of the day consisted of constant trips to the observation deck (solely to observe, of course). This whole experience was quite a treat and showed me that although we are home to the world’s worst weather, Mother Nature can make an exception sometimes.

Stephen Lanciani,  Summit Intern