Life at the Top: Weather Wisdom from the Mount Washington Observatory


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Clouds wash over Mount Katahdin's Tablelands, just a mile or so from the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail Nin the cat on Mount Washington. Illustration by T.B.R. Walsh from Cat in the Clouds

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LIFE AT THE TOP: Weather, Wonder & High Cuisine
from the Mount Washington Observatory
Paperback, 192 pages, B&W illustrations, Hobblebush Books, 2009

The updated 2009 edition of Life at the Top “Wry New England humor….perfect for a cold winter’s night. Be sure to light a fire first, though, or you’ll be alternately chuckling and shivering.”

-Weatherwise Magazine, reviewing the first edition of Life at the Top

New! Coming in August 2009. Click to pre-order from Hobblebush Books

This updated, expanded edition of Life at the Top brings the tall tales and wild weather of the Mount Washington Observatory into the 21st century. New photos, new weather jokes, and new chapters introduce readers to hapless hikers, mischievous meteorologists and summit cats Marty and Nin. (Nin was just a rookie when the first edition of Life at the Top was published back in 1997, and Marty hadn't been born yet.)

A new chapter titled "Life at the Bottom" explores the Mount Washington-South Pole connection, with interviews with Mount Washington Observatory crew who have gone on to work in Antarctica. How do Mount Washington and Antarctica compare?

The first edition of Life at the Top was published by Down East Books in 1997.

For more Observatory tales , see the children’s book Cat in the Clouds

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington is known as the Home of the World’s Worst Weather. Mount Washington is also the home of a meteorological observatory, so we have the records to prove just how bad the weather is atop the Rockpile.

A handful of hardy souls lives at the Observatory year-round. Do they have to be just a bit unusual to seek out such a career? Perhaps. But the Observatory crew find much to enjoy in their icy home—even when it means dealing with hundred-mile-per-hour winds, wandering moose, and odd questions from visitors (“Can you see New Hampshire from here?”). Of course, they are also treated to spectacular sunsets, spine-tingling thunderstorms, and breathtaking toboggan runs.

In Life at the Top, weather observer Eric Pinder describes the joys and terrors of living in the clouds and explains Mount Washington’s geology and weather. The last section of the book is a one-of-a-kind cookbook made up of recipes contributed by the Observatory staff—favorite dishes from people who take their meals seriously (especially in winter, when the food becomes spicier as the temperature grows colder).

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	Text and photographs © Eric Pinder