Snow Fort Shenanigans

2010-03-05 17:03:38.000 – Drew Hill,  Summit Intern

Steven Welsh enjoys a fine piece of literature

I recently heard somebody refer to storms as ”tantrums of the atmosphere.” Well, if that’s the case, then sign our shift up for a Parent of the Year Award (Those do exist, right?), because the atmosphere up here has been anything but fussy. In fact, another high pressure system has moved into the region, bringing with it impeccably sunny skies. Stacey’s out making turns on the East Snowfields, Steve’s tanning in a lawn-chair on the Obs Deck, and, well, the intern is inside digitizing old weather records.

The week hasn’t been all sunny skies and digitizing, though. As some of the Observers mentioned in previous comments, ”the Germans” were up for a few days. As guests at the home of the world’s worst weather, the German’s were banking on hurricane force winds, white-out squalls, and heavy rime. Their trip, unfortunately, saw only gentle winds and light fog– well, they did have a couple of sunny days, but stating that would ruin my ”writing mechanism,” so we’ll overlook them. To spice things up a bit, they set to work building a snow cave. AWESOME. We spent a surprisingly warm night inside the igloo (pronounced: zie Igloo, in good German fashion), and awoke to a beautiful foggy morning.

Sadly, the Germans left yesterday, and, before they did, they demolished the snow cave. If you look carefully at that picture (click on ”demolished”), you’ll notice that it took a little more than brut force to tear that thing down. Leave it to German engineering to design a snow fort that requires a several-ton snow tractor to destroy it.

Well, I think I’ve talked (typed?) your ears (eyeballs?) off enough for one day. Time to catch the crystal-clear sunset.

Drew Hill,  Summit Intern