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The Climb to the Clouds Weekend
by Jim Evans
I've been excited about working my first hillclimb since John Buffum spoke to
us at the Annual NER Weekend last January. I can still recall my wife's stare
while I was writing my name on the sign-up sheet going around. "How long are
you going to be gone? Four days???". I said "sure, care to come with me up to
New Hampshire's woods during black fly season?". She immediately declined.
Well as we were getting closer to the date, I was also preparing to take my
Amateur Radio (ham) Novice test. I passed that and within the week passed the
next level of test for Technician. This allowed me to access to the ham
privileges we would need for communications on the various nets we would use.
I signed up as a flagger first and a ham second. Good thing I did. I also
signed up Ken Caruso, who is also a ham, to come to his first NER event.
OK, we'll be there for four days so I decide to load up the camper with more
than everything we'd need. I didn't realize how close other towns were to
the campsite. We drove up Thursday afternoon with another couple of hams I
had met through work, Frank and Sue Caci. We took our sweet time getting up
there. After stopping in Conway to get some beer we proceeded up the road to
the base of the mountain - so we thought. Frank was leading and we came upon
the sign "Welcome to MAINE". Nope! Turn around and try again. We finally get
to the ham registration at the base of the mountain road and find out that
SCCA worker registration is 15 miles back. Right, I'll see Lynne and Larry
in the morning. I get my ham package of rules, procedures, jacket patch and
badge with my ham callsign on it - KA1VUG (I'm now N1HTS). Ken's is N1GYV.
Laurie Sheppard and Marianne Stevens couldn't understand why we have these
funny "names". It looked like KAIVUG and they know it's not what they've
called me for the past four years. We had a good laugh over that.
Drive to the campsite three or so miles away, set up and begin to cook supper.
Now it starts raining so we cook inside. Sausages inside create LOTS of smoke.
Fire rangers were all set to take fixes on where the smoke was coming from!!!
After supper some of us ended up in Dick Patullo's camper to swap lies. By the
way, Gert Gove got NER the campground. Thanks Gert. There were a few
interesting things regarding the campground. No showers and the "facilities"
were interesting. The LRP "white rooms" or NHIS "blue rooms" aren't even in
the same league as the "brown rooms" here!
Friday morning alarm goes off at 3AM!!! I need time to wake up and have coffee
and breakfast. It's DARK outside and the worker meeting is at 4:30 - which
is the time most drivers' alarms went off. 4AM comes and Gert reminded us
by blowing her horn a few times. Yes Gert, it helped. We get to the worker
meeting place and find that the coffee promissed to us is across the road.
Forget it, I brought my own and lots of it. We got our assignments from John
Colt (NV1Y) and luckily I'm still with Ken assigned to checkpoint 6, which
has a lovely space to park a van out of harm's way. Since I'm a flagger and a
ham, I was able to fill both the flagger and the emergency net ham's position,
and it had nothing to do with my waist size!! We only ran half the course
today so Ken was the traffic net operator calling in cars as they came past us,
while I waited for something more ominous to happen.
6AM, workers are on station and all checked in, the cars are about ready to
roll. Something wrong with this picture. It's too early for race cars. It
was also too early to start swatting bugs. Out comes the bug spray every 20
minutes or so. They must be immune to the stuff. During some of the lighter
moments Ken pulled out his video camera a took pictures of the cars parading
down the mountain between sessions. He also got a couple of cars coming
up through the checkpoint. It would have been nice if he had caught the #10
white Celica All-Trac coming through the checkpoint in it's four wheel drift!
These drivers are crazy with trees on one side and large boulders on the
other. Of course, pass the treeline, there's nothing to bounce off of before
you're over the hill - literally.
We make it through the practice day without any major hitches by 11:00AM! It's
too early NOT to hear VROOM-VROOM. We had a worker meeting to discuss the
good things and bad things we did that morning. We learned that control didn't
want to hear "car off the road" unless it was literally OFF and well out
of sight, potentially plummeting down the mountain side. Boy these rally folks
are picky.
Back at the campsite by noon and nothing to do. Sun is out for the most part
and we need to keep occupied. We can't get in trouble because there is nothing
there to do! Looking to kill time, we decide to go see a friend of Ken's
summer vacation cottage in Jefferson. Drive all the way there and find it's
still boarded up from winter. Ok, nice view but still nothing to do but head
back to the campsite with a stop for ice on the way. Load up the coolers and
now what? Still need something to kill the daylight. Just what we need. A
trip to the top of the mountain we were just on.
I had the van brakes checked that week, so no problem. Load up the van with
Ken and Dave Hottle. Ken has his camcorder in front with him and it looked
real scary just looking through the view finder. It was also our way of
checking out the spots Ken and Dave would be on Saturday since they were
changing checkpoints. I asked for and got the same place. It was too nice
of a spot to give up.
The van made it to the top with the help of second gear and first. We can see
the road while going MUCH slower than the rally cars and that was scary
enough. I can't imagine going up there at rally speeds. We get near the
top and we're actually in the clouds - 6288 feet up in the air. I'm driving
very slowly through this stuff and all of a sudden I hear a loud PPPPSSSSSSS.
WHAT happened? Tires seem ok and it doesn't appear to be a radiator hose
bursting. Turns out is was the cog railway steam engine letting off steam
just outside of our sight in the clouds. That definitely got our attention!
Park the van in the parking lot and it's 20 degrees colder than at the bottom.
Got out for a little sight seeing - more clouds. This is not the place to be
living. They physically chain the buildings to the ground to keep them there.
After about 30 minutes or so, Ken turns on his ham radio to see how far he can
talk to people. Right away he's talking to hams in Waltham with two watts. For
the NHIS flaggers, the radios we use are one watt and sometimes it's still
hard to hear. The top of the mountain really helps here. I could hear the
folks in Billerica I normally talk to but couldn't talk to them since I was
also keying up another ham repeater in Maine.
Coming down the mountain there are places to pull off to cool the brakes.
We take advantage of this to take some pictures since by now we are out
of the clouds. Ah, the smell of brake pads. It smells like a showroom stock
race. Get back to the camp site in time to cook supper and pop a few cold
ones. Frank and Sue came over and we proceded to talk well past dark, finishing
off our favorite beverages late in the evening and called it a night.
Saturday's alarm goes off at 3 again, and what's this? RAIN!!! What a
wonderful day to be racing. 4AM and Gert's on the horn again, then off to
the worker meeting for 4:30. I get checkpoint 6 to myself while Ken gets to
work at checkpoint 24 which is well beyond the treeline. Almost beyond
mountain goat line. We get going and weather starts to get worse - if you can
imagine that. It was so bad that 13 cars made it to the top before John Buffum
shut it down and moved the finish line. He had to do it again that day. It was
so bad that a car pulled over because driver couldn't see the road. Since he
didn't pass the finish line, workers went sent out looking for him. Paul
Czarnecki found him. Picture Paul in whites coming out of a white cloud. He
saw the car from 20 feet away but the driver didn't see him until he was 4
feet away. The driver nearly jumped out of his harness!
Weather has now become worse and animals are gathering two by two. The Mt.
Washington weather observatory says we have 30mph winds gusting to 55, and
hail. The workers vote John Ricker as weather steward. Wind was so bad that
someone's door just about came off it's hinges when the wind gusted and the
worker's hand slipped off the handle. Dick Patullo made two observations -
"When the urge calls you have to decide between wind direction and modesty" and
it was his first time flagging in hail. Between runs while they are trying to
figure out where to put the new finish line, workers had a chance to rest a
bit. Some too much. Two of the folks at checkpoint 9 were caught napping. Sue
in the front seat and Jay Z in the back while Frank is standing outside. Jay,
that's not a way to recruit new workers, especially when they've only been
married for two months!!
I'm not sure why but mother nature was playing bad things with my insides. I
can hold on since we are scheduled for two practice runs, and then - oh no!
John announces a third run, so I go running for a tree in the downpour. We
finish the third practice and the rain lightens up some. Some of us go back to
the bottom and some of the hams head to the top of the mountain to participate
in Field Day activities.
Field Day is an annual event where hams come out to set up emergency stations
and operate from about 1PM Saturday to 1PM Sunday to talk to as many hams as
possible for as many points as possible. Since antenna height is very
important with making contacts, the higher the better. Some stayed on the top
all night! The sane workers came back to the campground for a champagne
breakfast at noon paid for by Laurie Sheppard's SPORTS CAR article on John
Howe. Thanks to the both of you. After that a nap was in order to prepare for
the cookout.
We wake up and no rain, then head for the cookout near the starting line. We
get there and had to park in the upper parking lot. This means we have to walk
over the bridge made up of square grates so the snow can fall through in
winter. This was no problem except for Omega, who is Jo-Ann Gerde's 60 pound
Husky/Shepherd -- her paws were just about the size of the square holes. She
put her brakes on, put her head down, spread her toes and gingerly, step-by-
step made it to the other side -- a picture of TOTAL concentration.
Let the festivities begin! Crank up the DJ, beers, hotdogs and burgers. The
planners were smart since we had a big tent that looked like a three ring
circus. We had a cannon across the street that went off numerous times scaring
the hell out of us. We posed for a "class picture". We even had our own "moon'
at the base of the mountain. You had to be there to see it, but once you did,
you wish you hadn't. Drivers will do anything to get attention! We ended the
cookout with a fireworks display.
We arrive at the campsite to see to our surprise a campfire going. John and
Dick used the cans of bacon grease from breakfest to help the fire get going.
It got so hot that it helped dry the wood enough for it to go all night. There
were some memorable moments worthy enough to write down. Laurie, for some
unknown reason, tried to imitate a catfish. This was topped off with her
imitating a flounder by trying to hide in her jacket with one eye showing. She
also made a statement which we couldn't understand - "Jay was driving. That's
why I got drunk". Can you explain it now? Bob Chausse commented that the
stagecoach drivers that drive up the mountain every day were so impressed with
the way the flaggers drove up that we are thinking of having an exchange
program with them. We drive and they become flaggers.
Other notable (well, maybe) quotes of the evening were "Why fart and waste it,
when you can burp and taste it", and "If a rally car crashes in the woods and
nobody hears it, do we care?". Another good comment was about the "high
frequency farters" refering to the squeeky lobsters that someone bought for
the drivers school clambake. Ken and I were the last ones around the campfire
when the stars came out in full force after eveyone else went to bed. I spot
a satellite. Is this a good sign or a bad omen?
Sunday morning and we can sleep late - 5AM. Bob's classical music helps us
wake up and begin to function. For some reason, Laurie was still cuddled up
in her sleeping bag while everyone is walking around. We see movement in the
car so we wander over. Laurie peaks over the sleeping bag to find faces
staring at her. We just smiled and walked away. We've all been there before.
Get to the worker meeting and it's sunny at the top. John Ricker makes up
for yesterday. We get to see if the course record gets broken or not.
Spectators are in the parking lot and we forgot a recruiting booth! Ken gets
checkpoint 11 today, which is on a slope 2 feet from road. The workers get to
hold onto small pine trees and a rope to help them get out of way. The station
is right on the racing line - for road racing drivers. The line is on the
opposite side of the road for rally drivers. They drive funny.
To help us with the cars, control passes out a photocopy of the grid, but it's
blurred. I don't think it was due to us. We get all set and the first few cars
are off. Just before John Howe gets to the top of my station, he decides to
put his hand out - I think. Checkpoint 7 calls in that John came by waiving
his arm out the window pointing behind him. We red flag everything below my
station and I proceed to go up while the flagger at checkpoint 7 starts coming
down to see what John was pointing to, since we had hikers crossing the road
up top. I get there to see the other flagger with a large branch lying across
the road so I called in that "there's a limb lying across the road". This
caused the medical gang to sit up in their seats!! Clear the limb and finish
the hillclimb.
NER's Tim O'Neil sets the new record. Does that mean Tim buys the beer next
year? We know he'll be back. Race is over with. We made it. Back to the
campground to pack things up and head out. We took our sweet time getting home
by going through Weirs Beach and pass NHIS. Finally get home at 9PM and I have
to work tomorrow. ZZZZZZZ.
I'm already signed up for next year.
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