Hike up Mt. Washington

I hiked up Mt. Washington with my dad & aunt yesterday. It was...very hard :P That last half mile was a killer. I'll start at the beginning:

Before we started hiking, we had to figure out logistics for coming back down. Lots of people simply hike back down, but we were not interested in that (good thing, too. We would totally have fallen and died if we had tried to go back down.) There is a little shuttle from the top that drives you back down, but it's like $26 per person, and you're not guaranteed to get a seat on one. They fill up really fast.

We decided to drive two cars up and leave one at the top. Worked out great. We drove my car and my aunts car, then the three of us came down in my car and we went to the Pinkham Notch lodge, which is where Tuckerman Ravine Trail starts. We got started on our hike just before 10:30am.

2.4 miles up from Pinkham Notch lodge is the Hermit Lake Shelter area. One of the few shelters on the mountain. This part of the hike felt like it took days. The trail was a pretty steep rock & dirt patch through a tunnel of trees. Every time we got to a turn we were sure we would be at the Hermit Lake Shelter, but no, it just kept going. We did eventually make it, and it took us about two hours. We were encouraged to see a sign indicated that we only had 1.8 miles to the summit. We'd already come 2.4 miles, so we were over halfway!

We stopped for 20 minutes at the Hermit Lake shelter, from 12:10 - 12:30. We had some snacks, a quick breather, and then got back on the trail. I will quote a description of this part of the ride from the Mount Washington Website

Beyond Hermit Lake, the Tuckerman Ravine Trail changes in its character – it becomes much narrower, and has several quite steep sections. It ascends along the "Little Headwall" to the "Connection", and then travels into the "Floor" of the Ravine. The steepest and roughest part of the climb comes next, ascending the "Headwall" of the Ravine. This is an area that is typically wet, and extra caution is needed to avoid slipping. While thousands travel this trail each year without incident, the trail ascends a cliff, and travel off the Trail would bring you over a precipice with disastrous results.

This is where the hike started getting really hard. The 2.4 miles to Hermit Lake Shelter was somewhat tiring, but not particularly difficult. This next stretch was quite tough. We had to use our hands quite often to get over big rocks and maintain balance on wet rocks. I did get some great pictures during this section, which I need to upload from my camera (I didn't us the iPhone for this, it wouldn't have done it justice ;)

Once we we had ascended the headwall, which took roughly 2 hours, we reached Tuckerman Junction. Here's another description from the same site:

After the ascent of the Headwall, the trail becomes marginally less steep, coming to "Tuckerman Junction" (5383 feet), where it turns a bit to the right and ascends the rough boulders of the summit cone of Mount Washington, eventually reaching the summit parking lot and then the summit itself (6288 feet). From Hermit Lake to Tuckerman Junction is 1.2 miles, from Tuckerman Junction to the summit is .6 miles. Total distance from Pinkham Notch to the summit via this trail is 4.2 miles, with 4,250 feet of elevation gained.

That last 0.6 miles was absolutely brutal. It was literally just boulder-to-boulder climbing. And if you do the math, you'll see that in that last 0.6 miles we ascended 900 feet. It took us about an hour to traverse this last stretch. By the time we got to the top, I was completely spent. I'm not sure I've ever been so physically exhausted. Plenty of people climb this mountain without any issues, but they are all in much better shape than I am ;)

We did make a final push to climb some stairs and touch the "Mt Washington Summit" sign, which I guess now I'm glad I did. At the time I was perfectly willing to just wait in the car ;) Speaking of which, it was such a relief to have a car waiting for us. There is no way I could have walked down. I never would have made it in one piece.

Anyway, it was a great trip, and I'm glad I did it. However, I won't be attempting anything similar without getting in significantly better shape. Time to hit the gym!

I'll try and post some more pictures soon. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the actually summit. I was so out of it I completely forgot :P