Just saw the TV ad for LL Bean....

[Bill O]

I am guessing that what is behind the shoveler is a wall with the picture on it. Both have a wall as in head-wall.

I'm pretty sure the spot was filmed outside, so I don't know about a wall...but I may be wrong.

I do know that it helps to have a more global view on things.

Either way, that's an interesting riddle and I have no idea what it means. I was never good at riddles.

[AlpineHikerFan71]

I'm pretty sure the spot was filmed outside, so I don't know about a wall...but I may be wrong.

I do know that it helps to have a more global view on things.

Either way, that's an interesting riddle and I have no idea what it means. I was never good at riddles.

Aha, good answer Brad, I was kind of thinking on the same lines, but I have been wrong many many times if my life

Like Bill, I was never good at riddles either, some will come up with it or Brad already answered it

[Brad]

I went to http://www.mountwashington.org/news/release.php?id=5 and played the ad over and over. Then I paused it and stepped through to look at the background. It shows 'the tower" on the left - what looks like a garage with snow on the roof - and an antenna tower of some sort on the right.

Hmmm, not sure I have been around the Adams building to the side door at the tower where the snow drifts. Is there a small garage-like structure there?

Still working on the riddle ...

[Bill O]

If they could film the Everest Imax on Mount Washington they could shoot the LL Bean ad just about anywhere.

[fifteendays]

Jeez, I'm stumped.

I know the full story behind the ad, but even I don't know where Mike D's going with that riddle! He's a tricky one, you know...

Since we're talking about the ad, I thought you might find this interesting... We were asked via email a few days ago about the song that accompanies the ad. To try and find an answer, I Googled the lyrics that I could discern from the commercial and found out that it is a song from 1960 by Roger Miller called "Footprints in the Snow".

In a weird, tragic Mount Washington twist, it's about a guy finding a young girl who got caught in a snowstorm and succumbed to the adverse weather...

Here are the complete lyrics:

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
(Roger Miller - Jerry Elliott)
« © '64 Tree Publishing, BMI »

Some folks like the summertime when they can walk about
Strolling through the meadow green it's fun there's no doubt
But give me the wintertime when snow falls all around
For I found her when the snow was on the ground
Well I traced them footprints in the snow, I traced the footprints in the snow
I can't forget the day my darling lost her way
And I found her when the snow was on the ground
[ steel ]

Well I dropped in to see her there was a big round moon
Her mother said she just stepped out be returnin' soon
I found her little footprints and I traced them thru the snow
I found her when the snow was on the ground
Well I traced them footprints..
[ steel ]

Now she's up in heaven she's with an angel band
I know I gonna meet her in that promised land
But everytime the snow falls it brings back memories
For I found her when the snow was on the ground

**********


Scot
MWO Staff

[Torden]

ra‧vine 
–noun
a narrow steep-sided valley commonly eroded by running water.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ravine

[Mike D]

Snow.

I'm sure my flubbed grammar didn't help anybody solve the riddle. Most years, Tuckerman Ravine is filled with snow well into summer. That's because high West winds blow it off the summit. The commercial shows a man shoveling chest-high snow. Snow never gets that deep on the summit, drifts notwithstanding. Since the snow in the commercial looks fairly consistent, it probably wasn't filmed on the summit.

That and the fact that no one shovels within sight of any office windows.

[Bill O]

Also, consider timing here. The commercial first aired a few weeks ago, in October. Did they film this commercial last winter and leave it in the can for 6 months? Or maybe there's another logical explanation.

Nobody seemed to grasp my hint of "taking a more global view" either.

[Grizz]

Considering the "global view" was this filmed at the south pole?

[Bill O]

Considering the "global view" was this filmed at the south pole?

That's a good guess and you are considerably warmer (actually a lot colder). But the south pole is a dreadfully flat and incredibly expensive place to film. And for arguments sake it really never snows there, as hard as that is to believe.