Obs rotated the Tower Cam to the west

[peakbagger]

Not sure how long it will stay that way but when I looked at the tower cam on Washington this morning it was facing towards west with the Pemi Region in the center of view. The obs used to have a west view camera but I think it tended to freeze up.

Nice to see that they have found a way to get a sponsor for these webcams.

 

[NHClimber]

Autoroad also started coaches to top yesterday. Should be an article in Daily Sun coming up.

 

[peakbagger]

Wow that is incredibly early, they usually have to bring in heavy equipment to dig out sections and steam out all the culverts.

 

[skiguy]

Wow that is incredibly early, they usually have to bring in heavy equipment to dig out sections and steam out all the culverts.

The rides up were done with the Snow Coach aka Caterpillar Tracks not tires. https://www.conwaydailysun.com/berl...cle_06f7d2a2-c608-11ee-9f14-6b3b5f02ddd2.html

 

[peakbagger]

Okay, I saw the article and they are taking one of the track equipped vans up. This is an interesting change, reportedly they were not allowed to take the public up past halfway previously as there was no way or plan in place to rescue a party if they had a problem. The OBS has been running snow cat day trips for many years but it was under the guise of the participants being "members". My guess is now that the state staffs the summit and has a snow cat, the lure of tourist dollars has changed the policy.

Mike Pelchet got shot down when he was summit manager of opening the summit building to the public prior to road being open in order to "biologically prime" the wastewater treatment system prior to the onslaught of the autoroad traffic and to service the fairly large numbers of hikers accessing the summit. My guess is the new head NH State Parks is somewhere in the background on this decision. Typically, the COG will be able to access the summit long before the autoroad and I expect this expansion of summit access is just the beginning.

 

[skiguy]

Okay, I saw the article and they are taking one of the track equipped vans up. This is an interesting change, reportedly they were not allowed to take the public up past halfway previously as there was no way or plan in place to rescue a party if they had a problem. The OBS has been running snow cat day trips for many years but it was under the guise of the participants being "members". My guess is now that the state staffs the summit and has a snow cat, the lure of tourist dollars has changed the policy.

Mike Pelchet got shot down when he was summit manager of opening the summit building to the public prior to road being open in order to "biologically prime" the wastewater treatment system prior to the onslaught of the autoroad traffic and to service the fairly large numbers of hikers accessing the summit. My guess is the new head NH State Parks is somewhere in the background on this decision. Typically, the COG will be able to access the summit long before the autoroad and I expect this expansion of summit access is just the beginning.

The Observatory has not been doing day trips for years. They have an overnight program, and all its participants are very carefully vetted that they are following the guidelines for appropriate Winter Gear in the event they may have to walk down. It's a stretch to imply some sort of guise was, is or has been occurring. The Auto Road doing a day trip was an isolated event based on conditions permitting. As stated in the article they may do another day trip conditions permitting. I have a hard time believing in the meantime that the State has some larger scheme to turn the availability of its snowcat into a bigtime money operation. The number of days where that is permissible due to weather is a small window and the profitability of that kind of operation if it ever occurred would be questionable. The Auto Road already has an infrastructure in place to support that if it were to occur. Therefore, for the State to compete with that would be highly unlikely. Again, the frequency of The Auto Road providing this service is limited at best at the moment. Of course, with climate change maybe it will become a year-round operation. And to think they might not even have to put the caterpillar tracks on or clear any culverts.

 

[peakbagger]

Funny, i have been on the summit late winter/ early spring a couple of times pre Covid when an OBs day trip in the OBs snow cat was visiting. It was not a resupply or an edu trip, these were specific day trips for members. I never looked into the details.

IMO, this is another camels nose under the tent or expanding the summit use, in your opinion it is not.

I am not representing that the state is going into the snowcat business to haul tourists but the state is the owner and manager of the summit and they ultimately are in charge of life safety at the summit and make the calls in the use of the summit. They would have had to sign off on this effort. In the event of an accident that is possible even under very well vetted conditions, the state will be called to be in charge of the rescue and will probably use their snowcat. That is one of the controversial reasons that the state started maintaining a year round presence at the summit and purchased a snowcat after the generator fire. It was done in order to support and protect the operations of the summit as the OBs was unable to do so.

The modified vans being used are not snowcats and very limited in capability compared to a snowcat. Those van conversions are a bolt on track drives that have a reputation of being less than bombproof. In the event of a thrown track, anyone in the vans are going to have to choose between a walk down or a wait for backup. The OBS edu trips participants are specifically vetted and required to have adequate winter gear prior to their trip up in the event of a breakdown.

 

[skiguy]

Pre Covid.......Like I said The Obs has not been running day trips for years. When they were I still cannot relate to your use of the word "guise". As far as I can tell it was a legit operation. Thank you for clarifying a bit more about your interpretation of the use of the State's Snowcat. Although you seem to be alluding the State has some other financial motivations for the use of that vehicle. Which in itself seems to be a guise on your part. I also fail to understand what is controversial with its presence. Could you elaborate on that? I assume we can both agree on the other hand that operations on the mountain are intertwined. Cooperative support between all parties is essential. Whether the presence of the State's Snowcat is some sort of "Camels Nose" is debatable.

 

[peakbagger]

Looks like they rotated the camera back to its old orientation. I also think I got to see the reflection off the Atlantic before a week or two ago before they had rotated it.

 

[NHChris]

We regularly workout at Mount Agamenticus in York Maine. It's 3 miles from the ocean and on a clear day Mt Wash and the entire Presi ridge looks sweet. About 85 air miles I believe.

I've read accounts by Celia Thaxter that she often saw the mountain from her home on the Isles of Shoals.. Of course the air was a lot clearer in 1880.

 

[peakbagger]

Maine Medical Center in Portland is up on the side of western promenade, It has some great views of Mt Washington on clear days,

Seeing the refection off the ocean from Mt Washington is lot rarer, I think Scudders viewing guide had a section on the best times of the year to get the view, The sunrise needs to be in narrow band of angles.

 

[skiguy]

Here is a fun little widget we use in the Ham Radio hobby for calculating line of sight. https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight-for-multiple-radios/

 

[maineguy]

Here is a fun little widget we use in the Ham Radio hobby for calculating line of sight. https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight-for-multiple-radios/

Thanks Skiguy. I had never seen that before. I seem to recall reading a long time ago that some organization had shot a laser beam between Mt Washington and the John Hancock building in Boston. I couldn't find any reference to that, but I did use that tool to see what would happen. I plugged in an antenna height of 2 meters for MTW (approx average eye height) and a height of 241 meters for the J Hancock tower and got this result. The green line indicates a clear LOS. Red would have indicated blocked LOS. I do not think that a radio LOS always translates into a visual LOS, or vice versa, but this is interesting nonetheless. It is a fun tool.

 

[NHClimber]

The Doubleheads are in the way. I can’t see anything.

 

[skiguy]

Thanks Skiguy. I had never seen that before. I seem to recall reading a long time ago that some organization had shot a laser beam between Mt Washington and the John Hancock building in Boston. I couldn't find any reference to that, but I did use that tool to see what would happen. I plugged in an antenna height of 2 meters for MTW (approx average eye height) and a height of 241 meters for the J Hancock tower and got this result. The green line indicates a clear LOS. Red would have indicated blocked LOS. I do not think that a radio LOS always translates into a visual LOS, or vice versa, but this is interesting nonetheless. It is a fun tool.

https://www.ardusimple.com/visual-v...OS is the ability,path is called Fresnel zone.

 

[NovaNectar]

Not sure how long it will stay that way but when I looked at the tower cam on Washington this morning it was facing towards west with the Pemi Region in the center of view. The obs used to have a west view camera but I think it tended to freeze up.

Nice to see that they have found a way to get a sponsor for these webcams.

Glad to hear they've found a sponsor for the webcams! It's always interesting to get a live glimpse of the Pemi Region, even if the views change. Thanks for sharing the update!