The Worst Weather in the World

10-8-10

We woke up to beautiful sunny skies in our beautiful Mt. Washington Hotel.  Our first item on the agenda was a ride on the cog railway to the top of Mt. Washington.  Okay, let me say here that I had no idea what the top of Mt. Washington was like.  In my mind, I had visions of alpine meadow.   After all Mt. Washington is only about 6000 ft - compare that to Mt. Rainier at 14,000 ft.  Well it didn't take me long to find out.

At the top of Mt. Washington is a weather station because it is known to have the WORST weather in the world.  And it definitely proved to be true - it was 10º F with winds gusting to 70 miles an hour!  Visibility was maybe 20 feet.  It was there I learned about "rime" ice and I've included some pictures. 

Brrr!  Fortunately, we only had to stay there 1 hour and then we could ride the next train down.

The rest of the day was quite an improvement.  We drove on beautiful highway 2 across Vermont and stopped in at Ben and Jerrys.  We enjoyed the factory tour.