visiting the presidents

To celebrate David's 50th birthday Barb and I went to the presidential range in the
White Mountains. To the summit of Mt Washington first at 6,288. The view was great first thing in the morning with the skies vivid blue, even HD vivid blue. The only thing that stopped the view was the curvature of the earth. The downside was early this morning the temp was 33 degrees with the winds blowing between 25-40 and the 24 hour recorded gust was 72 mph. Something I hadn't thought about since my move to Florida was wind chill and this morning it was listed at 12 !!!! We piddled around the summit for a bit and then headed down to Lake of the Clouds hut built at 5200 feet and sitting on a high lake as the name indicates. A quite impressive facitlity for overnite stay and table fare staffed with ten employs thru out the summer serving up to 90 overnite visitors that hike up to the hut. After a visit and watching all the activity I sampled the split pea and ham soup and some chocolate cake, again for David's birthday. There were still more presidents to visit so off navigating the terrain above the tree line with the wind just a blowing. Off to visit pres # 5 (Monroe)where just at the summit the wind pretty well blew Barb off the trail. Again another reason for me to carry the weight that I do as Barb got blown around quite a bit, most definitly when we were on the side of the mountains. A trip to say hey to #14(Pierce) and log three 4000 footers in the book for the day. Being a quite nice Saturday the trails were quite busy with hikers of every age and Barb and I enjoyed watching all the activities. By late afternoon with the temp now up to 40 it was time to stop and see the colonel and head back to the townhouse.