Loving The High Life: My Internship on Mount Washington

By Mees Franssen

Hello again everyone! It’s Mees, one of the summit interns this winter, with an update on how my internship has been going these past couple of months. My first blog post talked about my first week, now I am approaching the end of my internship. I can’t believe how quickly time has flown by, and how much I have learned.

Sunrises up here are unlike anywhere else; I’ll definitely miss these!

I’ve been up and down for a shift 7 times so far, and I can say I finally have a hang of things up here. I now regularly forecast, usually twice per shift, and have gotten a lot more confident with it. The observers, Alex and Charlie, have been great mentors in learning how to forecast for the higher summits, which can often get challenging with the complex terrain. In these past seven weeks I have also gotten to practice my radio voice; frequent listeners to local stations may have been lucky (or unlucky) enough to hear my voice on NHPR, giving a statewide forecast.

As you might know, research is a big part of the internship at MWOBS. The other intern on my shift, Marin, and I have been working together on a Solid-to-Liquid project aiming to compile unique climatology of snow density on Mount Washington. The project has gone extremely well, and we were excited to present our findings recently on Science in the Mountains! We found that Mount Washington has a uniquely distinct snow density compared to the U.S. average. Our research has gone so well that we will be presenting our findings at this year’s Eastern Snow Conference in June!

Getting the Precipitation Can, continuing the 44-year long dataset we have been relying on for our research.

While interns do work hard up here, there is plenty of time for shenanigans. My favorite memory without a doubt is sliding on the deck in 110 mph winds— one of the most uniquely terrifying things I have ever done. Having been spotted on the deck cam, our little race went viral with posts and stories on CNN, CBS, the weather channel, and Outside Magazine; with The Weather Channel posting close up zooms of me floundering on the ground like an extra in the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, something I don’t find embarrassing in the slightest…

Getting some fresh air and clearing your mind is a bit challenging in high winds.

If you were to ask me what my favorite part of the mountain would be, I’d say the food. I can’t write a blog post without thanking the incredible volunteers for their delicious food and amazing conversations. Incredible meals like Hainan chicken, smoked ribs, authentic German food and Jambalaya made the summit feel all the more like home. My experience on the summit would not have been the same without all of you, thank you!

As my internship wraps up, I’ll keep working hard but also take the time to appreciate where I am. Weather permitting I’ll go on some hikes, take more pictures, and eat some more food!

For a look at the research I’ve been doing alongside Marin MacDonald on Solid-to-Liquid Climatology on Mount Washington, visit mountwashington.org/research/intern-research-projects/.

Sunsets up here aren’t bad either.