Come up while you can!

2014-09-22 18:38:00.000 – Christine Welsh, Summit Museum Attendant

For a number of reasons, this has been an interesting shift week on the rock pile. The weather has been swinging radically from autumn to winter and back. One morning I awoke to rime ice and a -6 degree wind chill and 110 mile visibility. The next day we reached the low 50s, but had zero view of the rest of the world. We have seen 2 mile per hour winds and we have seen upwards of 82 mile per hour winds.

The most remarkable aspect of this week to me, however, has been one that is utterly representative of summit life. On a typical week, we are nine or ten people: three weather observers (one of whom is a seasoned shift leader), an intern or two, two museum attendants, a museum docent, one or two member volunteers graciously cooking us dinner every day, and Marty (the cat), all living and working together peaceably on top of the rocks. This week, our faithful leader is off. The intern is away. We are without member volunteers. It is, as I have heard it called, a skeleton crew. What would the six of us do? Why, we have done as we always do, and worked together as a team, of course. We have equally joined forces and taken turns cooking, and had dinner together as always. We have all pitched in to do the housekeeping. And Marty has been extra careful not to kick his litter out of his box.

Downstairs in the museum, we had the pleasure of welcoming hundreds of ATV riders who braved the road Sunday morning, and still more who came in the perhaps less rewarding, fogged in afternoon. We were the hosts of volunteers past on Friday, treating them to the loveliest sunset of the week. As the Extreme Mount Washington museum is getting ready to wrap up its season, we continue to welcome guests from the auto road’s and cog train’s ever changing schedules. Make sure to take advantage of these last weeks we are open for the season. Sign up for membership and take a tour while you are here to witness our teamwork and summit life first hand!

Christine Welsh, Summit Museum Attendant