Mount Washington Summit Hike

This past weekend I attempted a summit hike of Mt Washington in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire with two of my friends, Dan and Sean. I really have done no endurance training minus some barefoot running since I gave up ultra running earlier this year. I would estimate I've totaled about 40 miles over the past 5-6 months in running, but I have picked up the pace with hiking recently at some places local to my college. My training recently has consisted of the Greyskull Linear Progression template 3x a week (all barbell strength training) with some weekend hikes and fasted cardio walks thrown in there. We opted to go for gold and hit the biggest mountain on the east coast. The following is an attempt to recapture the events.

We began with a rude awakening on Saturday morning at 4am in Dan's basement in Grafton, MA. We had come home from our school in Springfield for the night but still had about a three hour drive to get to the trail head, so we quickly grabbed all of our stuff and hit the road. It took us a little over three hours to get to the trailhead. Contois, my former high school PE teacher and now good friend advised that we take the Amonoosuc Ravine trail over Tuckerman's ravine. The internet said that we would be in for a shorter in distance but much steeper journey, and that was very accurate.

The trail began off easy enough, some elevation but nothing I wasn't used to from previous ultra runs in places such as the Skyline Trail. One thing of note was that my two hiking partners had no experience with mountains as large as Mt Washington. Sean is an avid hiker and enjoys the outdoors (recreation management major) but had never exceeded a climb of over 1500ft, give or take. Dan had even less experience, so I was quick to bite my tongue when the discussion turned to what we might expect on the mountain that day as far as terrain. Both of them did well, but admitted that they did not envision what we experienced in the slightest. I would have to say I was in the same camp. The first mile or so was relatively flat, some gradual climbs here and there. We enjoyed the rushing water to our left for the entirety of this portion and stopped a few times to take pictures. One thing I really enjoy about hiking that keeps me motivated is that I can actually stop and enjoy nature, which I never got to do when I ran ultras. Here are some pictures from this portion.

One of my favorite things on the trail was this waterfall

This section was by far the easiest, as soon we were climbing and climbing quickly. It got to the point where we were on all fours at some points, something I haven't experienced in several months. I felt really good throughout this section, like some part of my endurance past still existed which was nice. At this point the weather was pretty shitty, it got cold and was raining really lightly. We opted to slow down a bit, eat some food and change into some warmer clothes. This section would turn out to be one of the most challenging parts of the course, but luckily I faired better than my hiking partners for the most part.

At this point we were feeling and moving pretty well. Dan was starting to get some cramps that we thought nothing of until we reached the Lake of the Clouds hut. We got a little bit off course before this landmark and were rumbling around in some off trail bushes (which we could've gotten in trouble for....) trying to find the trail. After taking some cool pictures (below), we found the trail again. We soon found ourselves at the hut and paused for a few minutes to relax. We were all a little tired at this point, but this was where the day would take it's first turn.

This was one of the "on all fours" sections, right before the weather cleared.

Really cool lake near the hut that I found amazing. One of my favorite parts of the trail.

Little cloudier view of the same lake

Dan began suffering some really bad cramps as we embarked from the hut and was having trouble walking. He had been suffering through a cold from the past few days and didn't prepare well enough with his hydration, and ended up paying for it severely. Me and Sean watched on as he literally lost his ability to walk for a brief period and needed us to "break the bend" in his locked out knees because he couldn't. It was scary because we were in a crappy position for this to happen- too far from the bottom and too far from the summit. At this time he also got sick and began dry heaving/puking from taking too many electrolyte tablets at one time.The thought of airlifting him out was beginning to come to fruition, and as tension grew we decided the first thing to do was call Contois and ask for advice. He advised that we get him off the mountain, but being us we decided to not heed his advice whatsoever. Sean and I ended up taking turns giving Dan a piggyback ride back to the hut (about 800m down hill through rocky single track) and carrying all three backpacks until we finally got him there, which took about twenty minutes. He was getting cold, but luckily at that point the sun was coming out and it was getting hot. Around 11:30am we finally came to the conclusion that Dan was going to wait there while Sean and I went for the summit. We knew at the pace we were moving we were only 60-90 minutes from the top and didn't want to waste the opportunity of driving all the way up there for nothing. Dan was fine with this because he wanted the same thing for us, so we hooked him up with a lot water and fluids and took off for the top.

Reborn, Sean and I hit the ground running after a near forty minute break from moving and were moving at a really good clip for about thirty minutes. Several other people were near us but it was mostly us for the entirety of this section. We began bitching and making jokes, knowing that misery loves company and basically just wanting to hit the summit. It only took us about fifty minutes to make the top at the pace we were moving. Towards the top it got too windy to talk (30-40mph winds) and a little chilly so we sort of split up, me in front but Sean pretty close behind me. I hit the summit first with Sean coming in about three minutes later. We took a bunch of pictures, went into the gift shop and hit the snack shop for some water bottles. We opted to make Dan a video at the top which was more humorous than anything. A total of about twenty minutes on top, feeling good and being happy to finally have made it, we decided to head back to our wounded soldier and took off once again.

Pic of the day even though the wind messed up my smile

Summit on the Amunoosuc side

Summit from another side

We got back to Dan at the Lake of the Clouds Hut in about 40 minutes, again cooking down the mountain. At this point Dan had about two hours to rest and was feeling a lot better, so we relaxed for a bit (Sean moreso than others, see pictures), and went for the car.

Lol

Defeated by the mountains but still enjoyed popping the cherry

It took us less than two hours to get off the mountain and back to the car. Something of note, I hallucinated for the first time in my life towards the end. I must've been really electrolyte deprived or dehydrated, but I saw the rocks in the water and swore it was my car and several others in the parking lot. I even exclaimed this as I was leading, to which Dan and Sean told me I was an idiot. It was very interesting going off the mountain in hot, clear weather because it didn't even look like the same trail we had climbed just hours previous with no rain or fog. They were hurting more than I was at this point but we were all pretty tired. We finally got to the bottom, took a little bit of a wrong turn and had to walk about half a mile extra, but ended up back at the car we had departed from 7 hours prior.


All in all, I had an absolute blast hiking Mount Washington. 6288 ft is the highest I have climbed to date but definitely plan to do higher in the future. Most notably, I'd like to summit Pikes Peak next summer when I go to Colorado to visit graduate schools. That's a ways away obviously but I plan to continue hiking pretty frequently as I genuinely enjoy it as opposed to how I felt towards running ultras towards the end. I plan to hike this trail again in the future, possibly with some new friends, and maybe on Tuckerman's ravine next time to change it up. If anyone is interested in doing so, let me know.