Showing posts with label High Point. Show all posts
Showing posts with label High Point. Show all posts

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Blizzard of December 2009

On top of Delaware
Kellisa had the week before Christmas off from school and I had a few vacation days left. Our plan was to fly to Philadelphia before visiting the highpoints of Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia. If we had time, we would also visit the highpoint of Washington DC and I was secretly hoping that we could also drive through Shenandoah National Park. What we didn't know was a major blizzard was going to hit shortly after we touched down in Philadelphia. We had to be flexible since we would only accomplish about half of our goals, but we still had an amazing trip!

Our first stop was Ebright Azimuth, the highest point in Delaware. Reaching 448 feet above sea level, this is the second lowest (behind Florida) of the 50 state highpoints. It was cold, but we completed our assault on the summit before the snow started to fall.

A few statistics from the record setting blizzard of December 2009:

1. The most snow (2 feet) in any 24 hour period in Washington DC.

2. In Philadelphia, the most snow (23.2 inches) from a single storm in December.

3. The storm was 500 miles wide and hit 14 states.

Counting what was already on the ground, drifts, and higher elevations, we were surrounded by 2-3 feet of snow in every direction for hundreds of miles.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

High Point

Kellisa's 15th State Highpoint

High Point, NJ
1,803ft.

December 2009

The highpoint monument:



Summit rocks:


After New Jersey, we were hoping to close out 2009 with the highpoints of Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia. However, the North American Blizzard of 2009 altered our plans.

Shortly after leaving High Point, NJ, the snow started to fall:


The next morning we found the road to the summit of Pennsylvania impossible to drive due to snow:


We were close, so we decided to stop at the Flight 93 National Memorial:

The flag above marks the impact site.



Not able to make all the planned highpoints because we were in the middle of a historic snowstorm, we decided to buy a sled at a small hardware store to have some fun in the snow:






We drove back to Jacksonville because of all the cancelled flights (we didn't want to miss Christmas):



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