sunrise--moonset...

out early!
i mentioned this morning, in the posting of the old tuckerman's draft--finally, almost a year after the fact--i was up early to catch the sunrise-moonset up on cardigan. our two MOC president/secretaries were slated to meet me at the winter parking lot at 6:00a. as i turned onto cardigan-orange road, a vehicle turned with me and i was guessing it was them.

it was, at least it was half of them. olivia jumped out at the parking lot with an early morning smile. justin had stayed in bed. he was probably much warmer than we were, but he would miss a clear view up on the summit.

we donned our creepers, i doffed my jacket, and we started up. the moon gave us plenty of light and even cast a pretty solid shadow in places where the trees didn't scatter its light. having left plenty early, we didn't have to race but we were going along fairly quickly. we stopped at one point to 'breathe' and sip some water. a bit later we cut a tree out of the trail so when it snows again, olivia can sled and i will be able to ski unimpeded.

the next stop, just past turn around rock, we put on jackets to shed the wind now that we were up above tree line. it was colder than i thought, and windy. at the top, both our phones froze up so we have no pictures. too bad, as both the moon and sun were visible right to the horizons. the sun pinked and then peaked out above newfound lake. thin wisps of clouds scudded by us, headed east into the light. the moon seemed to be growing--save for the bite the eclipse took out of the upper left--as it sunk toward the horizon in the west. it was a bit more cloudy on that side, but the white-ish, red-ish disc was visible.

7:02 and sunrise-moonset came and went quickly. we pointed our feet down and turned our heads to the side, cheating the cold wind. olivia had class at 8:00 so we ran quite a bit. back at the vehicles in plenty of time, we had a spot of hot tea and some of pam's tasty oatmeal muffins.






it was a grand start to the day and we both were happy to be 'outside and playing!' 

take two--to tux...

and a good time was had by all!
looking back on MOC's major events over the vacation breaks--deep freeze in february and tuckermans in april--there are frequently many more promising to go than actually make the trip. and while this year had a full cabin up on smarts mtn, very few made it to the bowl. my favorite cancelation, if you can call it that, was from brandon. before we left the high school--the schedule read 7:00a sharp, but we waited at least ten minutes--we tried contacting him by text and a call.

layla--text: "are you coming?"
brandon--text back: "..." nadda.
layla--call: "ring, ring, ring..."
brandon: "..." no answer.

we left for mount washington. about 8:00a, as we were going through plymouth we get a response.

brandon--text: "i thought the trip was on wednesday?"
layla--text back: "today IS wednesday!"
brandon--text back back: "..." nadda

that made us all laugh pretty hard. we didn't dwell on it.

we bought all the tourist tchotchkes and assumed the standard poses--down at pinkham...



and then up at ho-jos. it was not crowded. in fact, only a hand full of folks were up in bowl.

conditions were...let's say solid--very solid. you couldn't see much beyond the lip. but you could hear every turn the one fellow skiing made as he scraped down the ice on the left side. layla and hailey were glad they had left their sliding equipment at ho-jos and after a quick raising of the poles, we went back down to gear up for our own descent on the sherburne trail.



the snow was all manageable, with ice in only a few spots. we zipped right along, haily and i trading leads and layla whooping it up from her tube as she protected our flank. by the time we ran out of snow, their smiles were huge.

while there was a bit of texting and sending of pictures on the way back, there was a lot of sleeping. it was a fine day to 'go outside and play!'

ps i realize this is an ancient draft--but as i drink an early morning tea, and prep for a MOC moonset-sunrise hike, it seems an appropriate time to start posting again...stay tuned!