MOUNT WASHINGTON - 6,288 FT.
Highest Point in New Hampshire
May 31, 2004 (My 24th Highpoint)
Mount Washington was my fourth highpoint of my trip to New England. I came north on I-93
through Manchester and spent the night in Lincoln, NH which was about an hour's drive west
of Mount Washington. After deciding to go up Mount Washington via the
cog railroad I made my way there on US-3 and
US-302 followed by Base Road.
The choice to take the cog railroad was an easy one at first. A guy I spoke to at Driskill
Mountain, LA, told me not to take the Auto Road as your brakes would be smelling pretty bad
once you got to the bottom of the 8-mile road (plus the charge is $18 per car).
He told me that the hike was a beautiful one
but being that Mount Washington is notorious for its terrible weather, I didn't care to get
caught in this weather during a 6 to 8-hour hike. So I decided to take the cog railroad to
the top which is a 3-hour roundtrip. I think this decision was a good one, despite the
fact that an adult ticket costs $49. Brian, the engineer, had the obligatory New England
accent which made the ride somewhat entertaining. I had my backpack jammed with cold weather
clothing as the conditions as of 6:00 AM advertised a wind chill of 14 degrees (Fahrenheit).
By the time we got there at 1:30 PM, the weather gods smiled upon me, and,
as you can seen from the picture, the weather had
warmed up considerably to probably 40 degrees and enabled some nice
views. The weather gods
would get me back the next day (see Vermont).
After returning
to the parking lot just before 3:00 PM, I made my way towards Stowe, VT for my final
highpoint of the trip, Mount Mansfield.
Mount Washington summit - there were a crapload of people here on Memorial Day.
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