Five minutes after shooting this video, the electrician arrived. Then, it immediately started sleeting and raining horizontally with a temperature of 33. For the next 45 minutes, we worked outside restoring power to the Summit area.
When I finally walked through the door at home about two hours later, I looked at Star and said, "Would you check my face for me? I think I could have frostbite." She replied, "No, but it certainly is red."
Since my face was the only part of me left unexposed while working, it was pelted by the sleet. I guess I was fortunate the cold numbed it within the first several minutes, so the pellets didn't hurt as much. Anyway, I'm investing in a balaclava . You can teach an old dog new tricks.
I'm editing this post to add one additional piece of information:
Note the tour bus in the video. It consisted of the driver and a few hardy souls from a cruise ship willing to give the Summit a try in the miserable weather. I never saw any of them actually leave the bus, which I can't blame them.
The driver, obviously Hawaiian, stopped me at one point walking back to the truck to find more clothes to layer and yelled out at me from the doorway, "Can I get you something to drink and a snack? We have plenty. I yelled back, "Thanks, but I'm ok. I bring my own with me up here. What he yelled out next warmed my heart, if not the rest of me. "Sir, thank you so much for your service to our sacred mountain." Certainly, it's the first time in my professional career somebody has thanked me for my service. And for me, it's a good enough reason to justify what I am currently doing with my career.
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