MOUNT WASHINGTON REOCCUPIED
By Robert S. Monahan '29. Stephen Daye Press, Brattleboro, Vermont, 1933.
A party of meteorological oDservers spent the winter of 1870-71 on the summit of Mt. Washington, and the story was told in a book published soon after called "Mt. Washington in Winter." Professor C. H. Hitchcock of Dartmouth was largely reare: sponsible for the success of this undertaking, which continued until 1887, when it was given up. Now appears "Mt. Washington Reoccupied," the story of a similar adventure, sixty-three years later, originated and led by R. S. Monahan '29. A. A. McKenzie '32 was one of the party, as radio specialist. In the year 1933, by international arrangement, simultaneous meteorological observations were to be carried on at many points in the northern regions of the world. Pretty much single-handed, in a depression year, Monahan put through his scheme of getting Mt. Washington added to the list of stations, financed the project, and obtained instruments and cooperation.
The scientific value of the resulting observations may not soon be known. But aviation has caused a rapid development in meteorology, and these data will doubtless in the end be of service to the world; though the world in general, and even the observers themselves, may never know much about it.
The author says the book is a purely personal journal published to answer the popular question of how the winter on the mountain seemed to those who shared in the undertaking. It is an unadorned diary of daily duties and events. It rather bristles with hygrometers and anemometers and strange radio technicalities, but there is much beside. They were snug enough in the remodeled stage office, in spite of gales of 140 miles per hour and sub-zero temperature, and report no spectacular adventures. It is a book which will appeal most to those who have some interest either in radio and meteorology, or in the mountains in winter.
During the winter 363 climbers reached the summit. Many of these were from Dartmouth. "Our only visitors today were two Dartmouth undergraduates, Lincoln Washburn and Herbert F. Hawkes Jr., who arrived at midafternoon with heavy packs containing a week's food supply, blankets, textbooks and class notes, for they intend to prepare for their mid-year exams in seclusion At 6:30 p.m. a quintet of Dartmouth students .... arrived in a rather tired condition .... with the visibility steadily decreasing on account of the wind-driven snow and gathering dusk they tied themselves to one long rope and with C. M. Dubay in the lead struggled through the fresh unpacked snowdrifts on the eastern slope of the cone." "A Dartmouth group led by Landon Rockwell is believed to have taken shelter from the seventy-mile northwest wind at the Halfway House." (They did, and reached the summit next morning.) Between the lines of the two latter notes those who know the mountains in winter can read a tale of unpleasant condition and competent leadership.
