January 25th, 2017

The perception of beauty is a moral test. Thoreau

​Morning y'all,
It's a beautiful, clear morning up top. The high yesterday reached 37 degrees. The overnight low was 27 degrees, recorded shortly after observation yesterday morning. It was 37 degrees and clear at 7am observation. The mountain received no new precipitation and there is no snow on the ground up top. There was a dangerous glaze ice on nearly every surface yesterday, but the warm temperatures overnight seem to have it thawed out. I would still recommend carrying spikes up if you intend to reach the summit or Cliff Tops, there are a few sketchy sections of black ice up top. Get out and enjoy the day!

Top photo: Rime ice & sunset. Above: Meandering to Cliff Tops. Link below: Rime ice vs. Hoar frost.

Grace and I were able to enjoy our first proper sunset in quite a while yesterday evening. We didn't see anyone on the mountain all day and it cleared nice and early. The sunshine was a welcome sight after what felt like a lifetime in the clouds. We moseyed over to sunset and curled up behind some windbreaks to enjoy the show. The rime ice on the trees was a real sight as well, the first serious bits I've seen since the Whites this fall. It wasn't the most dramatic sunset with hardly a cloud in the sky, but deprivation does something sweet to your brain and makes everything seem wonderful. I missed the sherbert colours so vivid you could taste them.
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