Summiting Mt. Washington

After driving 2.5 hours north from Rhode Island, I arrived at my friend Mason’s apartment in Portsmouth, a cozy 1 bedroom apartment tucked away on a side street in the bustling town. We caught up after not seeing each other for a couple months, hit the town and visited a few of our favorite bars before calling it a night.

Sunday morning came all too quick, and starting the day with a slight headache from the previous nights  activities was a bit concerning knowing the physical effort demanded by the day’s agenda, the ascent to the AMC Lake of the Clouds hut.

The forecast was calling for clouds and rain, but I had spent the money to reserve a bunk so I’ll be damned if I wasn’t motivated to make it to the Hut!

There was a ranger station in the parking lot warning would-be hikers of the difficulty of the trail and providing updates on any potential weather concerns. The recent forecast was definitely appreciated as I had lost cell reception 30 minutes prior to the parking lot, so any news was good news!

The beginning of the trail was relatively flat with the rocky and root filled trailed that is typical of a hike in the Whites. The trail met eventually became parallel with a stoney river bed that was flowing from recent rain. As I gained in elevation, the clouds began to move in around 2500’ of elevation, which began to obscure the view of my surroundings.

At first the wind was gentle with the occasional gust. As elevation increased and miles passed, the gentle gust became a prominent push.. Even though visibility was increasingly worse, my multiple stops to catch my breath and add or remove layers were rewarding as the geography changed getting closer to the Alpine zone. .In these moments, I was thankful for weighing 200+ pounds and not so easily pushed around by the wind.

At some point I realized I hadn’t seen a marker in some time and had accidentally strayed from the designated path, a heart sinking realization! I had  created a route on a Garmin app to ensure I wouldn’t deviate from the path, but enough people must have made the error I did to have a “route” on the Garmin explore app in the same direction I was traveling.

I doubled back until I found more hikers, and we all pressed forward on what looked like old deer tracks. After about 15 minutes of the most uncertain hiking I have ever done, I could see the outline of the hut! The false path we took spit us out underneath the hut. A short trail around took us to the entrance of the Lake of the Clouds hut, my safe haven for the night as the ambient conditions got progressively worse.

Finally out of the wind and mist, I checked into the hut and was told of my designated bunk room. I was the first person to check in for my room so I had the luxury of whatever bunk I wanted. I chose a bottom bunk by the window facing outwards for the hopes of waking up to a view worth climbing a mountain for. I blew up my pillow, stretched out my quilt, and unpacked the rest of my bag, laying out my carefully preserved dry clothes that were worth their weight in gold after the hike up.

After a quick change, I made my way to the dining room by the front entrance, picked a table facing the front door, and continued to re-read a Scott Stillman book while watching fellow guests and curious visitors alike enter the hut with a similar expression of relief as they escaped the mist and wind. There was something inexplicably awesome about seeing so many people with a similar send of ambition make the same ascent I had completed that created a wonderful sense of belonging.

After about 45 minutes of reading, I started getting restless and decided I would venture back out into the mist and wind to summit Mt. Monroe which was only ~3/4 of a mile away, requiring a modest couple hundred feet of elevation gain to add another 4000’ peak to my belt. Somehow visibility had become much worse and I couldn’t see more than 20’ ahead of me. Thankfully the bare and delicate landscape of New Hampshire’s alpine zone made it easy to follow the stones marking the trail.

Reaching the summit of Monroe, I saw absolutely nothing! Having recently completed a different 4000’ with no view, I was a tad disappointed but ultimately not surprised given the conditions I had subjected myself to just to get there. I decided to take the long way back to the hut, requiring hiking further away from the hut before circling back. To my amazement, I had cell service! I decided to FaceTime both Mom and Emily to show them the lack of views and proof of life. Conversation was relatively short considering the high winds quickly carried away the sound of my updates, but the raw laughter of myself and my loves ones as the whipping wind blew my hair and hood of my rain jacket needed no sound or explanation. We were laughing like kids in that moment, what a special feeling to share that experience!

Feeling like a weatherman reporting on a hurricane, I made my way back to the hut since dinner would be served soon and I was not going to miss a hot meal! I ended up sitting with a brother and sister around my age from New Jersey who were celebrating the brother graduating college. The sister was the planner, having mentioned a prior visit to an AMC hut, and notably wearing a prized Melenzana micro-grid fleece. This was a rare sight on the East Coast considering you can only buy a fleece in person by appointment in Leadville, CO.  We all chatted during dinner, enjoying soup, focaccia, lasagna, salad, and a desert while the AMC Hut Croo served and entertained.

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After an amazing dinner, there was a presentation from a naturalist discussing the different birds and bird sounds that are endemic to the White Mountain National Forest. Once their presentation ended, it was off to my bunk for a bit more reading under the red hue from my headlamp.

I woke a few times to the snoring of my bunkmates and once more to the closing of a window someone had opened, brining silence to the whistling sound of the wind that had created a white noise effect. I woke up for good around 4:30am just before the sun had risen. From my bunk I couldn’t see too much since the window was covered in condensate, but once I had cleaned off a small patch I was awarded a glimpse of the valley and low light from the early morning.

I knew I had a rare opportunity to watch the sunrise rise over Mt. Washington from the Alpine zone so I threw on my still damp clothes and headed outside. The sky had become a pale blue with a few white clouds and a growing golden glow from the east. I decided to head west towards Mt. Monroe and join a few others who also decided to catch the sunrise. On a comfy rock shielding me from the occasion wind gusts, I watched the fiery orange ball appear just south of Mt. Washington.

Seeing the views that had been obscured by the cloud coverage was incredible. Alpine Mosses, a glimpse of a few other summits of New Hampshire’s 4000 footers like Mt. Isolation, and even a few patches of persistent snow that refused to yield to the incoming summer were now visible. After saying “wow” and “oh my god” probably 100 times, I headed back to the hut to avoid missing a much needed breakfast.

The hut was more lively now as people climbed out of their bunks to see the views I had been able to steal for myself. One of the AMC Croo started playing a guitar and singing a song I didn’t recognize from a bench in the hallway by the bunk rooms. This was a much kinder way to wake the sleepier adventures compared to the pots and pans I would have expected.

I packed what little gear I had, enjoyed a breakfast of oatmeal and bacon, and embarrassingly poured a cup full of hot cocoa powder into a coffee mug, fully anticipating it to have been premade already. As I ate, I had a decision to make: would I summit Mt. Washington today? Under normal circumstances, the answer would have been obvious, but what I have neglected to detail until now is that it’s a Monday, and I had a flight out of Boston Logan Airport to Dallas, Texas that afternoon for a work conference the next day.

The hike back the way I came was only about 3 miles, and at a good clip I could have been back to the car in an hour and a half. The alternative was a 6 mile trail that required ~1400’ of incline to the summit of Mt. Washington followed by 4000’ of descent back to my car. Both options involved a 3.5 hour drive from the parking lot to the airport, where I would then have to park, go through security, etc. before my 6:17pm flight.

Weighing my options carefully, I made the responsible decision at 7:30am with roughly 11 hours before my flight, I would haul ass up the mountain!

It was broad daylight in the alpine zone now with perfect hiking conditions. I made good progress towards the summit, often turning around to see how far away from the hut I had called home the previous night had become, and to catch my breath.

By 8:16am I had nearly made it to the summit enjoying blue bird conditions, and then it happened. Clouds quickly rolled in, obscuring visibility and returning the mountain landscape to conditions as they were the day before, but thankfully without the wind! At 8:21, I reached the summit! A mix of joy and accomplishment and adrenaline rushed through my veins. I took a few selfies with the sign before continuing on towards the Jewell trail leading through the Great Golf Wilderness. To my left was the Cog Rail, and the trail was visible on it’s ascent!

As I dropped in elevation heading towards Mt. Clay, the visibility improved and I was given amazing views of the rest of the presidential range and the bowl it created. I was very tempted to summit Mt. Clay knowing I was so close and the effort required to get myself back to the trail I was currently on. Unfortunately in my line of work, peak-bagging is no excuse for missing flights & work functions. Boo.

Being in the Alpine zone gave me this feeling I can’t quite describe. It was a place I had dreamt of visiting for months, trained my body, refined my gear, and planned to reach with obsessive intent. As I stood there, this feeling like lightning coursed through my body. I didn’t want to leave! I felt like I was where I belonged.

With these emotions in mind, my  descent was bittersweet as as the trees began to appear. At first they were tiny, maybe to my knees. The longer I went, the taller the trees became, obscuring and consuming my hard fought views of the mountain peaks and replacing them with a tunnel of green.

I had been using Emily’s trekking poles while she was in Alaska, but I found them to be slowing my progress on the descent. I stowed them in the backpack and took on a trail running approach to my hike down now that I was in the trees. This was really more like a jog due to my 30lb bag. As I did my best to avoid tripping over a rock, I realized I was going to be in a nightmare situation. I was going to smell terrible on the plane after not showering and hiking for two days.

Living my best hiker dirtbag life, I decided to use the last stream crossing before the parking lot as my “shower”. After crossing the bridge, I stripped down to my boxers and dunked myself in the cold mountain stream that felt like ice, dried off, and hiked the last quarter of a mile to the car.

Changing into jeans and a t-shirt in the parking lot marked the transition from the freedom of hiking to the normal world, the very world I ventured to the mountains to escape from. The current time was 10:46, so even with my shower It had only taken me about 3 hours to summit Mt. Washington from the Hut and hike back down! This was the hardest mountain summit I had ever attempted, and I can’t wait to return.