Hike to Lakes

2008-05-14 18:27:14.000 – Kyle Paddleford,  Meteorologist

Brrrrrrrr

Today marked the quickest and smoothest accent of the Auto Road so far this year. On the way down after our last shift week, we were able to see sections of the road that has been washed away from the typical springtime nuisances. Luckily, the storminess remained well to our south over the weekend which limited the potential for further damage. The Road Blog has some good pictures and videos of the hard work that they have been doing to get to road in shape for everyone to come visit the summit.

I was fortunate enough to get out for a hike today and enjoy the beautiful weather while heading towards Mt. Monroe and down to Lakes of the Clouds Hut . I was greeted by the familiar sound of sedge blowing in the breeze and throughout the hike it remained gratefully restless. Colors of green and brown were blending as the new replaces or reinforces the old. There is still a long way to go in this process. Most of the snow has melted off the summit, especially on the west side , with only a few patches remaining in addition to some of the larger long lasting snowfields. Water was still running subsurface for the most part and there was an apparent audible difference from that of a few weeks ago in late April. In some areas the water would surface, running over the rocks and splitting into small streams following the contours of the land only to disappear and then reappear when you least expected it.

With all that beauty there must be a beast. The beast in this case is bug season. Winds were nearly calm for a few hours today and this was indeed the case. The nice thing about being on the summit is that you can always count on the wind to clear out the pests sooner or later.

Kyle Paddleford,  Meteorologist