Life at the Top: Weather, Wisdom & High Cuisine from the Mount Washington Observatory
Eric Pinder first learned to love weather and mountains in his  hometown of Cobleskill in upstate New York, where as a  child  he watched the stars and lunar eclipses with a toy  telescope. After graduating from Hampshire College, Pinder  began his  writing career when he published a travel guide to Maine's  Baxter State Park. In the spring of 1995, he started work at  the  Mount Washington Observatory. As a weather observer  Pinder most often took the morning shift, waking at 4:30 to  prepare the  radio forecasts. He wrote three books during his time at the  Observatory, and for two years edited Windswept, the  Observatory's membership magazine. He also led  "Understanding Mountain Weather" guided hikes for the  Appalachian Mountain  Club. Pinder left the Observatory in 2002 to pursue his  writing more fully. He became interested in children's  literature,  and his book Cat in the Clouds, based on the adventures of  the Observatory's cat Nin, comes out in May 2009 from  History  Press. Pinder continues to live in Berlin, New Hampshire,  and teaches Nature Writing and Writing for Children at  Chester  College of New England. His previous books are a first  edition of Life at the Top (Down East Books, 1997), Tying  Down the  Wind: Adventures in the Worst Weather on Earth  (Tarcher/Putnam, 2000), North to Katahdin (Milkwood  Editions, 2005), and Among  the Clouds: Work, Wit and Weather at the Mount  Washington Observatory (Alpine Books, 2008).