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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is The Weather Notebook. Mount Washington is known as the peak with the world's worst weather and the highest recorded wind speed. For some weather nuts that's why they've become Mount Washington weather observers. Recently, alumni of that group ,which dates back to the 1930's, shared their memories of life on the peak.

When we were down getting a little rest, or R and R, or whatever you'd call it, and come back up, it was on foot all the way. Usually on ski's partway and then crampons when it got too icy.

When we got to the actual road which is about the 6 1/2 mile point we ducked into one of the little emergency shelters that were there and we had to wrap ourselves up with all of the extra clothes that we had in our packs, it was that cold. When I finally got to the summit I took a bottle of wine out of my pack. It was twelve percent alcohol in those days and it was frozen solid. So, that was my introduction to the summit of Mount Washington".

"We had a bad storm and the winds often blow very hard the day after the storm and it was time for me to go back down and even though it wasn't very windy up above timberline, I really didn't run into trouble until I got to the timberline 'cause then the snow got really deep and I had a sign with me made out of wood because when I got to the bottom of the mountain I was going to thumb back home. The snow got so deep that I couldn't go anywhere and I didn't have snowshoes. So, I had to use that sign to shovel my way down. It took me several hours, but even if it did take eight hours at least I was gonna get out of there with my life.

The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory and is sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation and Subaru of America.