NULL

2010-10-09 17:47:11.000 – Kristin Raisanen,  Summit Museum Attendant

The summit looking wintery!

Most people use the three day Columbus Day weekend as a chance to enjoy autumn. Many people enjoy leaf peeping in the mountains, taking in a football or soccer game, spending a relaxing weekend raking leaves or carving pumpkins. Some people even take a trip up Mount Washington to get their first dose of winter and to take in the sights from the highest point in the Northeast, but not today, or really for the last 3 days.

The summit has been in the fog since Wednesday, when our shift arrived. Since then we have had lots of icing and high winds. This winter weather has prevented the auto road from reaching the summit for the last 3 days and has limited the Cog Railroad’s ability to reach the summit too. I was even able to close the museum at noon on Thursday and hang out in the weather room getting back to my intern roots for a few hours before dinner.

With the Auto Road not summiting and the Cog Railroad only occasionally reaching the summit, the summit has become a bit of a ghost town. Yesterday, the State Park staff, which runs the concession area and State Park gift shop, was unable to reach summit until about noon, leaving many of the morning’s Cog passengers in want of a warm beverage or two.

Today, the summit was still too icy and windy for the Cog to reach the summit and the Auto Road was only running Stage Coaches to the summit for the afternoon, leaving just the hardy hikers on the summit for most of the day. However, the forecast for tomorrow looks a little more promising with skies likely clearing and winds dying down a little. So hopefully, by tomorrow we can get back to the busy Columbus Day Weekend that it should be up here!

Kristin Raisanen,  Summit Museum Attendant