Springtime on the Summit with Marty

2009-03-27 15:22:27.000 – Ali Boris,  Summit Intern

Exploring the summit on “built in crampons”

The warm weather that we’ve been having has allowed more time outside for all of us, including Marty. My last shift up here was the first time that I had seen him out of the building (I’ve been here since January 14th), and he’s gone out several times this shift.

Often he’ll agree to come into the stairway of the tower, but hasn’t ventured up to the obs deck with me before. On Thursday morning, he did his normal routine of meowing and swishing his tail in apparent deep thought as I called him repeatedly from the top of the steps. To my surprise, though, he scurried up to the landing, and cautiously followed me out the door. Brian has told me before that he doesn’t like to leave our side while outside (definitely a good trait for a young Mount Washington cat to have), and he certainly followed that rule. Despite ginger footsteps on the icy parts of the deck, he walked all the way around the deck with me, coming near to me and calling out to make sure I was still there. He of course resisted being petted for this first trip, but he spent at least 15 minutes exploring and sniffing.

That same afternoon as the edutrip arrived at the front door, Brian told me to grab the camera so that I could catch a few shots of Marty as he wandered around outside again. This time, he agreed to follow us off of the obs deck and to the front of the building, but stopped abruptly when we neared the snow tractor. Brian had charged me with the job of getting a good shot of Marty with the tower in the background, so I continued to tail him to Tip Top House and the rocks of the summit pile.

When he went out of site of me, he would meow until I responded – a sort of Marco Polo game – and purred and rubbed against my legs. I think he may have been asking to be let back in, but his friendliness allowed me to get some nice pictures of him. He walked around for about an hour overall yesterday.

The lighting was great. There was virga coming from the low, darkening clouds toward the northwest, and less cover from the south, lighting up the tower and North Presidentials. Unfortunately, I somehow lost them in transition to the computer… Ed O’Malley (current summit volunteer) and I are about to try again. Wish us luck! It’s another gorgeous afternoon on the summit after a stormy evening, proving once more how quickly the weather up here can change.

Ali Boris,  Summit Intern