BVO JOURNAL

It’s been a long time since I had climbed Mount Washington from the east side and with a report of 24” of new snow that had fallen the day before I was looking forward to the climb. The drive up to New Hampshire was a trip into itself, most of the way up we drove in a dense ground fog. As daylight broke, the fog lifted and the view of the White Mountains shining white with it’s new snow cover and deep blue sky’s was a sight to behold. Arriving at AMC’s Pinkham Notch Visitor Center’s, we found the 2 parking lots full. I guess a lot of people had the same idea as us.

By the time we had changed and shouldered our packs it was 9:30 am and already late for a winter ascent to the summit of Mount Washington with a same day return, but the Cumberland Gap Boys would give it their best. Even with the new snow the trail had been traversed enough to pack it down and there was no need for snowshoes. For the first mile not a soul passed by and we had this Cathedral in the Pines to ourselves. Stopping at Crystal Cascades, Mark took a run up the slope to check it out. He reported back that my 40’ waterfall was only a 6’ trickle and not worth the effort to check out. I figured I’d check it out on the return trip so the group headed on. Every so often during our assent you could turn around and view Wildcat Mountain or the visitor center in the distance.

At about noon the snow covered terrain got softer so I strapped on my snowshoes. After crossing a small snow bridge, I caught up to the group at an intersection in the trail. They met up with a couple of trekkers coming down the winter trail to Lions Head and were told that crampons were needed for this next section of our trip. Changing my snowshoes for crampons we continued through soft powder and an evergreen forest. For the first half mile or so I had wished I kept my snowshoes on, post holing was the norm for this section. Arriving at a very steep section in the trail, the clouds rolled in and snow started to fall.

Now the real climbing began. For the next hour we continued to climb, cut steps into the snow and then dig into the ice with our crampons. At about tree-line my knees gave out and it was time for me to call it quits. After I let the group know I was descending, I started to work my way down. They would continue for another hour above tree-line before white out conditions forced them to descend also. During my descent I ran into Eastern Mountain Sports Climbing School with about 8 clients. They were heading to the summit of Mount Washington with plans to stay at the observatory for the night. I worked my down to a small ledge and let them pass by. Watching them set up ropes and going over safety procedures, I could see why there are traffic jams on the routes up Mount Everest. Safety is the number one priority for the groups and 30 minutes of well spent time is better than one injury. But when you have 5 or 6 groups of this size all trying to make a deadline, I can see were there can be problems.

Once down from the steep slope I changed my foot gear back to snowshoes and headed down the mountain. During this time I had the trail mostly to myself till I got a mile from the trail head. Then people started to hike up for a short trip in the snow. I met people from Taunton, Mass., Pennsylvania, and Vermont. The snow continued to fall with a stop for pictures at Crystal Cascade and a short walk to the parking lot . The rest of the group found me in the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center’s store a little while later watching the snow come down.

See Picture Gallery