Wasatch Weather Weenies

I spent the weekend in Seattle and got to spy my first fresh snow of the season while hiking south of Snoqualmie Pass on Saturday.  The higher elevations of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, including Chikamin Peak had a fresh coat of white above 6500 feet.   To the northeast, the Stuart Range was also freshly coated.   Winter is coming....

There are many great drives in the world, including some in Utah.  One that is surely on the list is the Großglockner Hochalpenstraße (Grossglockner High Alpine Road) in the Hohe Tauern National Park of Austria.   The Grossglockner High Alpine Road is the highest surfaced road in Austria, reaching 2504 meters (8215 feet).  There is also a cobblestone spur road that will take you to the 2572 meter summit of the Edelweissspitze. We drove the road from north to south and then back in the same day.  It's not peak season here yet, so parking and pulloffs were not busy, but still the road was full of tourists (like us), bicycles, motorcycles, Porsches, and various "supercars." The Grossglockner High Alpine Road was built in the 1930s and reminded me of the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park and other National Park scenic roads in the US that were built in that same era.  It takes a sinuous route to and from the high altitudes.   The Grossgl...

I've been AWOL from the blog for a bit as I took a couple of weeks off from e-mail, social media, and tech as much as possible to recharge my mental batteries.  I need to do it more often.  Near as I can tell, humans are supposed to be swamping stories around a campfire, not suffering from all-day barrages of alerts and click bait.   A few days ago we were in Mt. Rainier National Park, which is one of the gems of the National Park system. Skies were a bit hazy with smoke from nearby fires, but views were still outstanding.  The photo below is from the Mount Fremont Trail near Sunrise.  I love this part of the park, especially in late September when crowds are down and the upper-elevations are snow free and ideal for alpine hiking.   I've hiked most of the trails in this part of the park, including an ascent of "the mountain" from the White River Ranger Station via Camp Schurman and the Emmons Glacier.  That was more than 30 years ago.  I...

I woke up this morning with a nip in the air and noticed that Alta Base, Alta-Collins, and Hidden Peak all had temps in the 30s.  It seemed like a good day to go for a hike and check out the end of season snowpack. I finished my hike at the top of the Snowbird Tram.  From that vantage point, no snow appears to remain on the American Fork Twin.  All I could see was a very small patch of dirty snow in upper Hogum that can't be discerned in the photo below.   I couldn't see into upper White Pine and a few other spots that might hold snow.  I suspect that with only a couple of very localized patches, it's pretty much a do over in the central Wasatch.   Earlier I bagged Sugarloaf Peak and Mt. Baldy.  From the latter I could see some lingering snow in the Timpanogos Glacier cirque.  You'll have to squint to see it! Today would have been my Dad's 83rd birthday.  I was glad to get out and enjoy some of the scenery that he loved to see when ...

It's been a long blog break while my wife and I were visiting Scotland.  A visit to the northernmost part of the United Kingdom might not be on your bucket list, but it didn't disappoint.  The Scottish Highlands contain some ancient mountains, lots of lakes (lochs), and spectacular coastlines.  I'll give a quick summary. We started in Edinburgh, which was quintessentially Scottish with weathered buildings overlooked by Edinburgh Castle.   Edinburgh is technically in the lowlands, but you can =get in a short climb above the city by ascending Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park.   Leaving Edinburgh, we got a glimpse of the lower slopes of the "original" Ben Lomond, which rises above Loch Lomond.  Mother Nature blessed us with clear skies on the day we had booked an excursion out to Staffa Island.  We enjoyed the coastal scenery and puffins. One of the reasons I like to go to places like Scotland is cool weather, clouds, and rain.  We get enough...

After a one month hiatus, I returned to Utah over the weekend and am back in the office this morning. The past month I was in Europe for a trip that was about 1/3 work and 2/3 vacation, although even the former was enjoyable and involved spending a week in St. Gallen, Switzerland for the International Conference on Alpine Meteorology and a couple of days at the University of Innsbruck.   Our trip began in Normandy, France, which was much prettier than expected, especially along the English Channel. A popular spot to visit is Mont Saint Michel, which you may recognize from the picture below.  Places like this are overwhelmed with tourists, so we tend to visit early or late in the day.  This summer marks 1,000 years since construction at this site began.  1,000 years!  Despite the crowds, I always find touring through places like this very interesting.   We also spent an afternoon in Saint Malo just a bit down the road.  The so-called "walled c...

For the first time in many years, my teaching schedule allowed me to travel over a two-week period in early October, including last week's spring break.  Andrea and I had not returned to Innsbruck since we lived there during my sabbatical in 2019 and we wanted to see friends there.  We also thought it might be a good time of year to visit the Jungfrau of Switzerland, which is the focus of this post. I've wanted to visit the Jungfrau since reading Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams .  Watching the Lauberhorn Downhill and its incredible mountain backdrops, also increased the stoke.  The Jungfrau region lies south of Interlaken, Switzerland and includes the Junfrau Massif (consisting of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau), the Lauterbrunnen Valley, the Grindelwald Valley, and the villages of Grindelwald, Wengen, Lauterbrunnen, and Mürren amongst many other peaks, valleys, and villages.  I found it to be the Land of the Impossible due to the impossible relief, impossible mount...