The road up to the Summit Hut, taken at about 13,000′. The hut is atop the peak in the center.
I have been away from this blog for over a week, so it’s past time to catch up. I’ll do best to post in random order. I had been having no success uploading any of the many photos I have taken, receiving only error messages when I attempted an upload, and that also held up recent posts.
Yesterday I went back down to Crooked Creek Station, the lowest (at 10,150′) and most civilized of the high-elevation research stations. Last night was most likely my last night there for awhile, as today, Sunday, I relocated to Barcroft Station at 12,570′ to do this off grid PV work. It’s an older (1950) and funkier station with a tremendous amount of history and character. The station has two crews of two people each, who work eight days at a time, rotating and overlapping each Thursday. Given the week on/week off schedule, the crews thrive on the isolation (it’s two hours’ drive to the valley below) as it’s cyclical. I’m looking forward to this focused time, which has its own sort-of monastic quality, yet with its feet planted firmly in the high ground.
The Summit Hut, built sixty years ago of concrete and stone.
I am finally doing the work activities that I came here for. I’m installing the PV system at the Summit Hut atop 14,242′ White Mountain. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday pre-assembling the system at Barcroft Station, and Thursday and Friday at the Summit Hut installing the system. The system isn’t finished but it’s operational. Tomorrow I’ll begin the assembly and installation of a nearly-identical system at the radiotelescope observatory above Barcroft Station, as it will power Barcroft’s new radios. I need to have both power systems ready for Noley, the man who is installing new internet radios at both locations.
The interior, as I began to assemble the power system.
The PV system, nearly finished at the end of the second day.
I celebrated my 64th birthday on Thursday by staying the night alone in the Summit Hut. It’s very spartan, lacking kitchen, bathroom, plumbing or heat, and until that day, electricity for lights. The views from the top would be amazing, and are, but the smoke from wildfires on the western side of the Sierra range have made the area so smoky that even the nearby Sierra crest isn’t visible. The Rough fire, west of Kings Canyon National Park, has been burning for three weeks and has now burned over 47,000 acres. With the severe drought conditions, it can hardly be contained – it’s currently reported as 3% contained, with 2,275 firefighters working on it.
I took several photos at dawn on Friday, showing the heavy layer of smoke from the wildfires to the west.
This is looking west toward the Sierra crest. The smoke is thick enough that the peak casts its own shadow on it. Normally the Sierra crest would be clearly visible in the distance.
Looking south from the summit at dawn, with clear skies above a smoky inversion layer.