King of the Mountain?

Second tallest peak in the state. Home to a unique and weird ecosystem. Gateway to three different states. Really big lump of rock. Paletop Mountain is all of these. But especially the latter. And it was calling to me. . .

And so I went.

It was a fine sunny day, with temperatures at ground level of around 5°F / -15°C and a windchill of a good bit lower. But that just meant that I wouldn't have to worry about being bothered by ticks, snakes, and mosquitoes. Just the occasional disoriented yeti, but nobody cares about them.

Amazingly enough, I decided to start at the bottom of the mountain and work my way upwards. The heavy snows of past weeks got massacred by a day of 70°F / 21°C weather a little while ago, so most of the going was free of snowdrifts. There were copious amounts of ice, however.

Icicles 1
Icicles 2

The lower parts of the mountain and the surrounding area are heavily forested with lots of big leafy (in the non-Winter months at least) deciduous trees of various kind, and also with lots of big non-leafy non-deciduous rocks.

Cliff
Trees

The source of one of the area's main rivers is also near the base of the mountain, and so there is plenty of wet stuff around for people less dignified and amazing than me to fall into.

Cascade

Though the weather was well below freezing, most of the water was moving along fast enough that it wasn't turning to ice. That didn't stop it from freezing when it splashed onto things, though. Most of the rocks in and around the river were covered in a casing of ice.

Icy rocks 1
Icy rocks 2
Icy rocks 3
Weird ice shapes
River
More river
Yet more river.
A slightly different River

Somebody thoughtfully provided a few bridges, too, which are no doubt greatly appreciated by all the rabid animals.

Bridge
Bridge, the sequel
Bridge, the sequel to the sequel
Bridge, the prequel to the sequel's sequel's sequel's sequel

And for your viewing pleasure: running water!

And so I proceeded up the mountain.

Trees
Trees and rocks
Weird frozen drainpipe in the middle of nowhere
Rocks and trees
Giant subterranean squid monster
Big trees
Deciduous trees
Deciduous rocks. . .no, sorry, those are more trees. My mistake.

After about twenty miles I hit the deciduous treeline, above which deciduous trees get really scarce. There's a grassy gap above there, and then a bit further on a totally new ecosystem of conifers takes over and hides the very summit. This grassy belt is part of what gives the mountain its name; partly it's called Paletop because it often has a cap of snow on it, but even in the Summer the sides of the peak near the top look very pale due to all the grass in comparison to the dark forests on the lower slopes.

Upon hitting this treeline, the weather changed a bit. It had been steadily getting colder the higher I climbed, and at this point the cover of the trees suddenly vanished and the wind had free rein. The windchill dropped down to about minus forty degrees (at which point, interestingly enough, the designation of "Celsius" or "Fahrenheit" doesn't really matter), which cooled things off a tad. But the really interesting thing was the air itself. From this point on in the photographs you might notice little sparkles here and there, or even mysterious ghost lozenges (related to the ghost orbs, but pointier) floating about. These were due to the alien mind-control rays refracting in the camera lens and-. . .

Wait, no, that's. . .ummm. . .wrong. (Whew, I almost gave the plot away there!) What those strange shiny specks and spots really are is ice. Though it was a mostly clear day, there was still a bit of moisture in the air. And when that air got up to the treeline level on the mountain, that moisture precipitated out of the air and suddenly turned into little flat angular bits of ice which then fluttered about and either landed or else just as suddenly disappeared when they reached an area out of the wind. They were appearing all around me at times; I was basically walking around in the very beginning of a snowcloud before it reached the stage of actually being cloudy.

Ice crystals also kept trying to form on my camera, which led to me having to be very quick to pull it out, frame the shot, take the picture, and then stick it back in its warmish case before the viewing lens and the optical lenses got all covered over. When that happened, I'd have to sit and thaw out the camera before carrying on.

When I got ready to take the first picture in this area, I pulled off one of my cumbersome outer gloves as I had been doing earlier. Literally within less than five seconds I lost all feeling in my fingers. I put the glove back on again, which is rather tricky to do when you're trying to put it on over another glove and when you can't tell where your fingers are (and you're hoping that at least the fingers are still attached somewhere, and not rattling around loose). When I got back down the mountain again and took off my gloves, I found that around that point I'd started bleeding rather messily from the cuticles on that hand. Not a pleasant experience.

At least I had a large vacuum flask of hot tea to keep me thawed out overall.

Non-deciduous trees! Woohoo!
Oh, and some more deciduous ones
Your fearless guide!
The stragglers of the old trees and the final conifer belt
Scenic view
More scenic view
A viewic scene?
This was looking down with the highest telescopic setting
More scene
And more
A rock, for a change

There was lots of ice building up on surfaces exposed to the wind in this area.

On dead flowers
On shrubs
On trees
On the overall landscape
On this guy

But I was not daunted, and ventured onwards. I had some cold-weather goggles, but even so I had to occasionally thaw out my eyelids when the eyelashes from one eyelid started freezing to those on its partner. I'd gradually end up with more and more of a squint, and finally I'd get tired of peering around through little icy slits. I tried at one point to see if I could pull my hat down over my eyes and warm things up that way, but the hat, balaclava, and all the rest were pretty much frozen into position. So I made do with taking off the goggles periodically and standing with my hands pressed over my eyes until the ice thawed. Then I'd madly try to wipe away the water before it refroze within a few seconds. I did briefly consider pouring the hot tea over my head, but decided to hold on to that as a backup system if the other didn't work.

More mountain views
And more
Snowy rock
An eagle doing an impersonation of a blurry speck on the far right
Green sprouts in the snow
A family of rocks admiring the view
A really big rock
Frostiness
Nearing a clump of conifers
They lurk in wait
Another vista (should you look at it using Windows?)
And another
A safe path?
Conifers, big and small
A renegade non-conifer
Zombie conifer
Frosted trees
One last look back

There's not really a clearly-defined line between where the grassy bit ends and the conifery bit begins. There tend to be little islands of the conifers surrounded by little strips of grass at first. Most of the very summit is totally covered in the trees, though. I tried to zig-zag around a bit to find some of the grassy bits amongst the trees, however, because the last thing we need now is another fifty photos of trees. Even so, I had to wend my way through a few good foresty areas.

Into the conifer woods
Surrounded!
The trees! They're everywhere!
Even there!
But there are apparently safe routes. . .
. . .to freedom!
More mountains
And more
More zombie treeishness
And more
Flowercicles
Trees and grass and rocks
Grass and rocks and trees
Rocks and trees and grass
There were chunks of ice sitting about
And a this tree posed for me
Looking down into the valleys
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
And looking. . .
Reminds me of Scotland!
A cluster of nervous-looking conifers
A marker stone, marking something
Stuff
The horizon
The horizon being attacked by trees
Another grassland
And a briarland!
Siamese trees?

I half circled around the very peak and came up from the far side to see what was to be seen. The last hundred meters or so of elevation displayed yet another boundary zone: things went from being somewhat icy to totally covered in ice.

Iciness
More iciness

This is a big rock that is just too isolated and picturesque to have occurred naturally. I think that somebody moved it there. Or it migrated. Who knows?

Picturesque rock

And now for a little sense of perspective. In the above photo, there is a darkish-coloured mountain peak in the near distance that I was looking down towards when I took the picture. As a point of comparison, that particular peak is:

Almost exactly twice as tall as Talyuberlup Peak in Australia.
Six times taller than Arthur's Seat in Scotland.
One-sixth as tall as Mount Everest.
One-eighteenth the height of Olympus Mons.
One-gadzillionth the distance from Earth to the tribble homeworld.

Paletop Mountain is actually not an isolated peak; it is just the tallest in a ridgeline that forms several peaks.

The next lowest peak on the ridge
And the next lowest after that
Other unconnected ridgelines and peaks

And so I finally went up into the conifers and to the peak. There's not really any view from the very top, though, other than of lots of ice-covered trees. Maybe next time I'll bring along some stilts.

The tip of the top
I survived!

The trip back down again wasn't too hard. I just threw myself off the summit and rolled down.

And that concludes our highlights of Paletop 2008. Be sure to tune in again this time next year for. . .probably nothing much.

And as a parting thought before you leave, I present you with. . .

A genuine lolcat!