Mount Washington – Highpoint of New Hampshire and the Northeast

Hike Statistics
Date(s): 5/26/2002
Route: Lion’s Head Trail Up, took the train back due to inclimate weather
Distance: 4.2 miles
Elevation Change: 4,300 ft gain up to the 6,288 foot summit

Before we left, Matt had to unload all the gynological health care supplies from his car (he is a Johnson & Johnson representative).
Jerry is checking out a thousand dollar device used for electrically scraping the uterine wall. I love camping!
Matt’s wife Kristen stayed behind to clean the garage. See, there are good women out there, you just have to import them from Russia/Pittsburgh.
Matt and Kristen’s dog Scooter wanted to come so bad that it burst out of him in the form of smelly dog poop.
I bet every macho guy trip that drives past this sign takes a pic and says, “Wow. New England is cool!” We said it as well.
The “Old Man in the Mountian”. This rock formation is kind of like New Hampshire’s poor man’s Mt. Rushmore. It’s on all their
road signs and even on their commemorative quarter. We learned from a local that it is precariously held together by a network of bolts and concrete.
Our reserved campsite sucked terribly (Fuck you, Terry Ho!) So we went to the Living Water Campground, which had nice spots and was mostly empty. Matt was able to sweettalk the owner in to letting us stay in a secluded group camping spot that was much
nicer than any of the normal pull-in sites.
Another shot of the campsite. The Ammonoosuc River, a beautiful trout stream lies about 10 feet past the tent.
I don’t know where the hatchet is. Matt spent the first hour or so chopping wood in a somewhat scary, manical fashion. He’s not supposes to have caffiene, but it was a holiday and all and well…now we know.
So the campground has a strict no alcohol policy (and some weird fundamentalist Christian overtones. Or at least it seemed. The guys working at the check in desk were pale with their hair neatly parted to the side. If that doesn’t say “born-again” I don’t know what does.)
This shot is Jerry and I enjoying our first “forbidden” beer in a very long time out of discrete camping mugs. We are so clever!
Lamenting the fact we were beside a trout stream without rods, Jerry tried “mental” casting. Got a few strikes, but didn’t land anything.
Matt enjoys a frothy cold “lemonade” by the stream.
A lovely shot of Conrad boys in their natrual habitat.
After the failure of “mental” casting, Matt chose to delve into his subconcious for Australopithecus instincts. We ended up having tortellini for dinner instead of trout.
After awhile the coffee mugs weren’t cutting it. Luckily, I had my fancy Nalgene® bottle, now in designer colors.
Jer by the fireside.
Out of focus, but cool.
Sunday morning greeted us with lots of rain and fog, but we set out to climb Mount Washington anyways. Here is the obligatory “before” or “last image ever taken” pic.
We parked at the start of the Cog Railroad, the only still running cog railroad in America. The steam engine turns a large cog that rides a teethed rail in between the tracks.
Photos unfortunately do not capture the sound of a steam engine, which is the best part. It sounded like…well, like a steam engine.
We didn’t think we’s see it again so we took a lot of pictures of it.
At this point we are half way up the Ammonoosuc Ravine and have already walked over a good bit of snow. The ravine was spotted with picturesque waterfalls, boulders, and trees that smelled like Christmas.
It got very steep before the Lake of the Clouds Hut, a Appalachian Trail stopover halfway up the mountain. The fog was thick and the melting snow had turned the trail into a river. An AMC volunteer advised us to turn back, so we mugged him. Matt and I went into the hut to have lunch while
Jerry was chatting with another hiker. Poor Jerry didn’t see Matt and I go in, so he wandered around outside in the fog looking for us. 15 minutes later while munching my PB&J I heard a pitiful “Sean. Sean!” outside in the fog. I didn’t get up but it made it into the hut anyways.
Shortly after we left the hut, we encountered this sign. Sideways rain, pea-soup fog, and intense winds didn’t seem like bad weather to us.
In the fog, above the tree-line was other-worldly. Your friends just a few feet ahead looked like apparations and the noise of the wind cancelled out their voices.
Volunteers had built rock cairns about every 20 feet. Without these, finding our way in the fog would have been impossible.
In this pic I’m leaning face first into the wind. You have to look at the way my pants are blown back around my legs to get an idea of how gusty it was.
The wind was warm air streaming up from the valley, pushing on our backs, so it actually wasn’t unpleasant.
This is the only pic from the top at the weather station. My arm is obscuring a “2”. When you reach the top, you realize that turning back would have really sucked. Even Matt was happy at this point.
Due to the fog and heavy water flow on the trail, we chose to take the train down. Ten minutes into the trip, the fog broke and the entire mountainside revealed itself. We would have had a great hike down, but hindsight is 20-20 and all that.
This is the mountain with the weather station visible. The snow patches were shrinking as the sun hit them.
The lion’s share of our hike is visible in this shot. I added arrows to the big version showing some landmarks.
After a 3000 vertical foot hike, I like to kick back with that cool Laramie flavor.
Always, I repeat, alwyas have a cooler of beer waiting in the car for the end of the hike.
The “after”. I think we look better than the “before”.
I can’t even begin to tell you about Rufus-killer. This guy gets his own page.
This is my new happy place.

Links:
Appalachian Mountain Club Hiking Info on Mount Washington

Hike Statistics
Date(s): 5/26/2002
Route: Lion’s Head Trail Up, took the train back due to inclimate weather
Distance: 4.2 miles
Elevation Change: 4,300 ft gain up to the 6,288 foot summit

Before we left, Matt had to unload all the gynological health care supplies from his car (he is a Johnson & Johnson representative).
Jerry is checking out a thousand dollar device used for electrically scraping the uterine wall. I love camping!
Matt’s wife Kristen stayed behind to clean the garage. See, there are good women out there, you just have to import them from Russia/Pittsburgh.
Matt and Kristen’s dog Scooter wanted to come so bad that it burst out of him in the form of smelly dog poop.
I bet every macho guy trip that drives past this sign takes a pic and says, “Wow. New England is cool!” We said it as well.
The “Old Man in the Mountian”. This rock formation is kind of like New Hampshire’s poor man’s Mt. Rushmore. It’s on all their
road signs and even on their commemorative quarter. We learned from a local that it is precariously held together by a network of bolts and concrete.
Our reserved campsite sucked terribly (Fuck you, Terry Ho!) So we went to the Living Water Campground, which had nice spots and was mostly empty. Matt was able to sweettalk the owner in to letting us stay in a secluded group camping spot that was much
nicer than any of the normal pull-in sites.
Another shot of the campsite. The Ammonoosuc River, a beautiful trout stream lies about 10 feet past the tent.
I don’t know where the hatchet is. Matt spent the first hour or so chopping wood in a somewhat scary, manical fashion. He’s not supposes to have caffiene, but it was a holiday and all and well…now we know.
So the campground has a strict no alcohol policy (and some weird fundamentalist Christian overtones. Or at least it seemed. The guys working at the check in desk were pale with their hair neatly parted to the side. If that doesn’t say “born-again” I don’t know what does.)
This shot is Jerry and I enjoying our first “forbidden” beer in a very long time out of discrete camping mugs. We are so clever!
Lamenting the fact we were beside a trout stream without rods, Jerry tried “mental” casting. Got a few strikes, but didn’t land anything.
Matt enjoys a frothy cold “lemonade” by the stream.
A lovely shot of Conrad boys in their natrual habitat.
After the failure of “mental” casting, Matt chose to delve into his subconcious for Australopithecus instincts. We ended up having tortellini for dinner instead of trout.
After awhile the coffee mugs weren’t cutting it. Luckily, I had my fancy Nalgene® bottle, now in designer colors.
Jer by the fireside.
Out of focus, but cool.
Sunday morning greeted us with lots of rain and fog, but we set out to climb Mount Washington anyways. Here is the obligatory “before” or “last image ever taken” pic.
We parked at the start of the Cog Railroad, the only still running cog railroad in America. The steam engine turns a large cog that rides a teethed rail in between the tracks.
Photos unfortunately do not capture the sound of a steam engine, which is the best part. It sounded like…well, like a steam engine.
We didn’t think we’s see it again so we took a lot of pictures of it.
At this point we are half way up the Ammonoosuc Ravine and have already walked over a good bit of snow. The ravine was spotted with picturesque waterfalls, boulders, and trees that smelled like Christmas.
It got very steep before the Lake of the Clouds Hut, a Appalachian Trail stopover halfway up the mountain. The fog was thick and the melting snow had turned the trail into a river. An AMC volunteer advised us to turn back, so we mugged him. Matt and I went into the hut to have lunch while
Jerry was chatting with another hiker. Poor Jerry didn’t see Matt and I go in, so he wandered around outside in the fog looking for us. 15 minutes later while munching my PB&J I heard a pitiful “Sean. Sean!” outside in the fog. I didn’t get up but it made it into the hut anyways.
Shortly after we left the hut, we encountered this sign. Sideways rain, pea-soup fog, and intense winds didn’t seem like bad weather to us.
In the fog, above the tree-line was other-worldly. Your friends just a few feet ahead looked like apparations and the noise of the wind cancelled out their voices.
Volunteers had built rock cairns about every 20 feet. Without these, finding our way in the fog would have been impossible.
In this pic I’m leaning face first into the wind. You have to look at the way my pants are blown back around my legs to get an idea of how gusty it was.
The wind was warm air streaming up from the valley, pushing on our backs, so it actually wasn’t unpleasant.
This is the only pic from the top at the weather station. My arm is obscuring a “2”. When you reach the top, you realize that turning back would have really sucked. Even Matt was happy at this point.
Due to the fog and heavy water flow on the trail, we chose to take the train down. Ten minutes into the trip, the fog broke and the entire mountainside revealed itself. We would have had a great hike down, but hindsight is 20-20 and all that.
This is the mountain with the weather station visible. The snow patches were shrinking as the sun hit them.
The lion’s share of our hike is visible in this shot. I added arrows to the big version showing some landmarks.
After a 3000 vertical foot hike, I like to kick back with that cool Laramie flavor.
Always, I repeat, alwyas have a cooler of beer waiting in the car for the end of the hike.
The “after”. I think we look better than the “before”.
I can’t even begin to tell you about Rufus-killer. This guy gets his own page.
This is my new happy place.

Links:
Appalachian Mountain Club Hiking Info on Mount Washington