Balsam Lake and Graham - Wild Weather!

[Tom Rankin]

We met a group of 10 (including Coldfeet and Laurie), for a 3500 Club hike up Balsam Lake and Graham. In the morning, it was sunny and clear, with the temps around 45. As we drove to the trailhead, it started to rain. We expected this from the forecast, but little did we know what was in store for us!

As we walked it cleared up at times, and rained a little more. When we got near the summit, it was raining pretty hard, with blowing wind and fog. A few brave souls ventured up in the fire tower. After lunch at the cabin, we started to head down, and were pelted with ice! It was most likely sleet from the looks of it.

The sleet and rain abated for a while as we walked over towards Graham. There even a few breaks of sun. But as we got up to Graham, it started to rain again and the fog rolled in. Oh well, no views today!

Walking down from Graham, we again saw a few breaks of sun. We thought maybe the worst was over! Wrong! The sky clouded up again and we could hear rumblings in the distance. We assumed it was wind or airplanes, or were we just in denial? Anyway, a thunderstorm started pouring rain, lightning and wind on us as we headed back to the cars. The last 5 minutes, we were assaulted by marble sized hail! I can't ever remember hail at such a low temperature.

Back at the cars, there was a quarter inch of hail all over the place, but it soon disappeared from the road as we drove off. When we got to Laurie's house, it had rained, and we even saw a rainbow on the way. Then a few minutes later, the wind and rain picked up again, and it started to SNOW!
Even though the thermometer said 36, it started to stick to the ground.

What a whacky weather day:

wind
rain
fog
sunshine
lightning
rainbows
hail
sleet
snow

Has anyone ever seen snow, sleet and hail in a single day????

 

[mudhook51]

What a whacky weather day:

wind
rain
fog
sunshine
lightning

hail
sleet
snow

Has anyone ever seen snow, sleet and hail in a single day????

Yes, I did today on Panther and home . Its snowing now. I missed the rainbows.

 

[MattC]

Nutty. I knew I should have gone back today! Oh well, it was great seeing you and Laurie yesterday. Glad you had an "interesting" hike today w/o getting clobbered by a giant hailstone or something.

Matt

P.S. Check your PMs over at ADK High Peaks. I was mistaken about something yesterday.

 

[hikethe115]

Actually, HarryK and I had all of that when we hiked Hale on my birthday. It seemed appropriate to have hail on Hale. We got all of that, including 2 rainbows on our walk out. They were predicting potential hail yesterday when we hiked Hale again, but we didn't get it.

 

[TMax]

Actually, HarryK and I had all of that when we hiked Hale on my birthday. It seemed appropriate to have hail on Hale. We got all of that, including 2 rainbows on our walk out. They were predicting potential hail yesterday when we hiked Hale again, but we didn't get it.

But we did get the two rainbows on the ride home!

Sounds like another interesting day in the Cats Tom!

 

[coldfeet]

Finally, have a few min to post....Thx to Tom/Laurie and the 3500 club.....one of the very few hikes that started in the rain, but I was prepared!....I enjoyed every bit of it, it was very cool hiking in the fog just looking around....I let my imagination wander thinking about "wearwolf in London" with all the fog....rain on and off....2nd time for my up Balsam lake, first for Graham (#30 out of 39)....our group of 10 ended up 4 I guess because I liked to stop, look at flowers and rest....this was one of the very few spring hikes for me and I was enjoying very minute of it.....then the sounds of the planes were getting closer, I think tom mentioned that the last one might be a 747....we did see the sun for app 30 seconds and then the clouds arrived very quickly.....back to rain and then suddenly little tiny bits of hail...."Hey Tom, this is cool thx!) I yelled out....after walking a few feet the cute pieces of hail were growing and growing and I thought it was really cool until I got hit in the hand and "ouch!"....gee this could get worse...I took out my camera to grab a few seconds of video to capture the moment before i got clobbered on the head but larger hail (glad that didn't happen)...we were app 5 min from the cars when all of this happened....quickly into the car and it stopped hailing as quickly as it started....took a pic there also....car ride down the hill was slippery...made it home in 4 hours....and I took some pics of large fluffy clouds...it was a great trip and I had a lot of fun...will post on webshots some time this week...

 

[Tom Rankin]

"Hey Tom, this is cool thx!) I yelled out....after walking a few feet the cute pieces of hail were growing and growing and I thought it was really cool until I got hit in the hand and "ouch!"....gee this could get worse...I took out my camera to grab a few seconds of video to capture the moment before i got clobbered on the head but larger hail (glad that didn't happen)...we were app 5 min from the cars when all of this happened....quickly into the car and it stopped hailing as quickly as it started....took a pic there also....car ride down the hill was slippery...made it home in 4 hours....and I took some pics of large fluffy clouds...it was a great trip and I had a lot of fun...will post on webshots some time this week...

Yes, I must have those pics and video!