One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: June 13, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1997_0215-20_DeathValley.htm)
There were over 100,000 people in the Fort Collins area, but only five of us took the trouble to be on top of Horsetooth Mountain (7255') one night for comet and eclipse viewing. It was awesome! Here's a description.
The weather report was iffy, so I waited until Sunday afternoon to decide whether to bother hiking up the peak, or maybe driving out to Pawnee Buttes instead. About 2 pm I heard that an expected fast-moving Pacific cold front would not arrive until after midnight, so I decided to go for the hike but not stay overnight as originally considered. I couldn't get my 13-year-old daughter to join me, but I kept in touch with her at home by ham radio. I also conversed with Andy Goris, who lived way up Redstone Canyon northwest of the summit, and we did some interesting experiments I'll relate in a moment.
Now if you go afoot to view a celestial event, you limit your ability to change your location in a hurry to find a hole in the clouds. There was a risk I'd be "stuck" on the summit unable to see anything, which so often occurs. As it turned out, based on what I heard on the news later and from a ham radio operator 60 miles east of me, we had the best seat in the house!
I'd been up Horsetooth Mountain over 25 times in 20 years, in all seasons, conditions, and times of day. Back in 1986, just three days shy of 11 years earlier, Andy and I spent a night on the summit to view and photograph Halley's Comet and a crescent moon rising over the Fort Collins city lights before dawn. This night the moon and clouds were similar, though of course the moon was full this time, and the comet du jour was in the NNW rather than in the east.
I started up the trail one hour before sunset at 1716. At the base of the Rock I met two guys who looked familiar. They turned out to be Tony Baltic and James Harris! Back in 1981 as grad students they spearheaded the successful initiative for the six-month county-wide half-cent sales tax to buy the 2000-acre Horsetooth Mountain Park [2023: now Horsetooth Mountain Open Space] and preserve it from development into 35-acre lots. It was really cool to run into them again up there!
I reached the top in a typical time of 1:20, at 1836, and stayed nearly four hours. The skies were actually clearing, about 30% cloudy, and the post-sunset view was pretty. Before long the full moon edged out (and in and out) of cumulus and cirrus clouds, causing them to glow most wonderfully -- "castles in the air." The orange pinpoint of Mars was visible just above the moon, within a photographic frame.
It was breezy and cool with occasional gusts. As it got darker the comet materialized in a nice clear spot between cloud layers. There were occasional distant lightning flashes in the clouds below it! We had a spectacular view of it for most of the time until it set. It occasionally vanished behind nearly invisible clouds. Over Fort Collins to the east the puffy pillows glowed orange from the city lights -- far more of them than there were in 1986 -- set against silver-lined highlights from the moon.
The clouds thickened and obscured the start of the umbral phase around 8 pm. We thought maybe that would be it for the evening. But we really lucked out as clearings appeared and drifted across the sky past 10 pm. We could see the moon about half the time, though usually through thin cirrus. In particular we had a good view of the highlight of the eclipse around 2130, just before the middle (when it vanished for a long time). A thin penumbral edge was brilliant white on the upper left limb while the rest of the moon was a noticeable ruddy orange.
Throughout the evening I interacted by radio with Andy down at his house, about 3.5 miles away and 1000' lower. He flashed his outdoor lights so I could identify which tiny spot in the darkness was him. And he got out his signal mirror. Now I've played with signal mirrors and radios before -- it's good practice and it works surprisingly well -- but I'd never been flashed by moonlight!
Before the eclipse got dark, I could easily see his flash with my naked eyes. Near mid-eclipse, when the moon was out of the solid clouds, I needed binoculars and Andy needed my headlamp for an aim point, but I could still pick out the sparkle from his mirror. We guessed this has never been done before!
On my headlamp I had mounted some HP high-intensity (red) LEDs. Andy was able to clearly see the 15 candle-power, narrow-focus LED from his house! Amazing!
It was the fastest four hours I ever spent on a mountaintop. Between viewing, photographing, eating, and talking with people live and on the radio, it went by too quickly. The temperature at 10 pm was a pleasant 50 deg.
I cruised down alone at 2225 in 1:10, mentally unwinding and thoroughly enjoying the eerie silent silvery darkness as the moon grew brighter but the clouds grew denser. A deer strolled through the quiet parking lot. I was home by midnight.
(Next trip report: 1997_0619-22_RockhoundWyoming.htm)