Tim Markle will be missed

2006-09-08 08:29:53.000 – Neil Lareau,  Observer

Nin is going to miss Tim Markle’s presence on the summit. So am I. Tim has been a mentor and a friend to me. To Nin he was a master scratcher and cleaner of the litter box.

I could detail the tremendous contributions that Tim has made to the observatory in way of professional expertise and more importantly in his presence within this small community, but the list would be to long for this forum. Needless to say Tim has left, as Ken put it two days ago, an “indelible mark” on this place. We will all miss his company and wish him the best in his austral voyages.

This Morning:

Morning light catches the wet russet sedge. An elongated mass of wind perturbed thin stratocumulus hugs the form of the ridgeline. Dry air mixes into this layer creating regular interstices featuring bright sun and intense blue overhead.

A distinct and visible boundary marks the top of the stable morning boundary layer about 1500 feet below the summit. Beneath this layer to the west everything is darker as the sun light is scattered away from my eyes by trapped particulates and high humidity. To the east the same layer makes everything washed out and white with forward scattered light. As the height of this boundary layer fluctuated in the early hours of the day our humidity dropped from 100% and hour ago to 17% now. That is incredible! The ability of air to be so discretely stratified still blows my mind.

The clouds have settled from the summit now and are pouring with compunction into the Great Gulf, following the route that our volunteer Maria Weick is following down the sphinx trail at this early hour. On the southeast face of mount clay, a portion of the headwall of the Great Gulf, there are patches of vegetation that are a deep oxidized red. Stratus valley fog obscures most of the towns of northern New Hampshire and Maine alike. Half a mile down the Gulf’s over steepened glacial valley the clouds that had descended from Mount Clay rebound and slightly overshoot their original altitude. A small wisp of cloud marks a strong up draft in this location.

Hiking on the west side trail yesterday after shift:

Cumulus eased by overhead creating an abbreviated view of the mountains, truncated from the neck up. Beneath the cloud deck, light glinted off the upper of the two lakes of the clouds in the col between Mount Washington and Mount Monroe. The effect was a spot of pure silver in a landscape of rich earth-tones.

Neil Lareau,  Observer