“I’d be writing the middle of my forecast and rub up against my leg… he liked to jump up in the lap and you’d have to type around him or, occasionally he’d like to fall asleep right in front of your keyboard,” Knapp recalled. Marty was a King of the Mountain, living quite literally above all of his peers.īut he was an unassuming monarch, and will be most sorely missed by the third shift staff with whom he passed so many midnight hours high atop New Hampshire’s most storied summit. It might seem a strange time to remember a solitary cat, at a moment when the scope of tragedy is so vast it can leave one feeling numb.īut sometimes, it takes a being as small as a cat to open a doorway to our grief, and remind us how to feel again. Last month, some 17 million nameless minks were culled in Denmark for the same reason. Marty’s passing takes place at a time when every day, thousands of human lives are lost to the novel coronavirus. His passing was reported on by The Boston Globe, The New York Times, New Hampshire Public Radio, and others. He featured prominently in majestic photos from the Observatory’s various social media accounts, appeared in the 2015 book Cats on the Job: 50 Fabulous Felines who Purr, Mouse, and Even Sing For Their Supper, and his exploits have been widely shared in popular media. Marty the cat has shared, and perhaps even exceeded, his namesake’s celebrity. “He would usually get tuckered out and you’d have to carry him in your backpack or in your arms back up to the summit but it was fun to see him going around the mountain terrain like that.”Īccording to the Conway Daily Sun, Marty was named after Marty Engstrom, a local broadcast legend who for more than three decades reported from the peak in a regular segment called Marty on the Mountain. ![]() “He went as far as Lake of the Clouds or even Mount Clay, which are about two miles or so,” said Knapp. He was almost doglike in his loyalty, would come when called, and was an especially accomplished hiker for a cat. Marty was an accomplished mouser, and often presented his kills to colleagues during the shoulder seasons when rodents sometimes find their way inside the observatory. “He was more of a night hunter and outdoor enthusiast than he was a daytime… surprisingly he always knew when the weather was bad or extreme and wouldn’t want to go outside.” Washington, which lies at the center of two prominent storm tracks, is famously advertised as “home of the world’s worst weather” and for years topped the record books for the highest wind speed ever recorded.īut Marty enjoyed spending time on the summit, even on frozen Winter days, when his black fur stood in stark contrast to the white and blue shards of rime ice that collect above treeline. Only the bunk rooms were off limits, as some of the humans that reside there are allergic to cats. He roamed and slept wherever he pleased inside the weather station and subterranean apartment where observatory staff live during their 6-day rotations. Marty had full access to the facilities on top of Mount Washington. “Like typical cats he had his happy moments, and other moments where you didn’t exist at all.” “When he was younger he would get into trouble because he’d get into the buckets and whatnot and splash water all around and create a mess because he loved seeing the ripples that his paws made in the water,” said Knapp. ![]() ![]() Marty was brought to the peak, 6,228 feet about sea level, in January 2008. The observatory’s twitter account paid homage to their fallen feline in a heartfelt tweet on Monday.He was appointed to the Mount Washington Observatory in 2007, after receiving more than 53% of the vote in a cat primary held by the Conway Area Humane Society.Īs indoor cats, his opponents Sarah and Wilson were admittedly less suited to the job. ![]() In addition to keeping the summit dwellers company at the highest peak in the northeast, Marty was also known as the mountain’s mascot.Ĭats have accompanied staff at the Mount Washington Observatory - known as the “home of the world’s worst weather - since 1932. “As a past observer who lived on the summit for four years, I can tell you Marty was a special companion, entertainer and so incredibly loved by observers and state park staff and will be sadly missed,” she wrote. Marty, a black Maine coon cat who also helped his humans patrol the mountain’s observatory, succumbed to “an unforeseen illness,” summit operations manager, Rebecca Scholand, said in a Monday news release. Tulsi Gabbard compares Biden to Hitler, less than a week after ditching DemsĪ beloved cat who spent the past dozen years comforting weather observers atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington has died. Small plane crashes into New Hampshire building, killing all aboard 'Could've been saved': Mom speaks out after 5-year-old was allegedly beaten to death by dadįather of missing girl charged for her murder
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