Mt Washington (6/18/25)

With school getting out two days ago, I was ready for a big hike, and I quickly decided it was going to be Mt Washington. I don't know exactly why I love Mt Washington so much, but it's definitely one of my favorite hikes. I think there's a couple factors there. First, Mt Washington is high payoff for not that much distance. It's not an easy hike, but it doesn't involve endless miles of trudging through the green tunnel, and I appreciate that. Second, on the Ammonoosuc Ravine side where I almost always hike from, Mt Washington has the Lakes of the Clouds hut as an intermediate stop, giving me a chance to assess conditions before I push for the summit.

I had been monitoring the weather conditions all week, and it didn't look like there was going to be an ideal day for the hike. Still, Wednesday looked like the best option, and it was the day I had the most free time, so it was a good fit. The weather report on Mountain Weather Forecast lined up fairly well with the forecast at the Mount Washington Observatory, which doesn't always happen. Both agreed that it was going to be a dreary morning with lots of cloud cover and scattered showers, and then there was a slight chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Wind speeds were going to be pretty tame for Mt Washington. I would have liked a better view, but we can't have everything, so I decided to go for it.

I stopped at Big Dave's Bagels in North Conway on the way, as I always do. I noticed that they have a video monitor on the wall that reports conditions from the Mount Washington Observatory, so I checked out the latest conditions as I waited for my bagel to be prepared. The bagel was delicious as always, and I enjoyed the apple juice I had with it.

As I passed the Mount Washington lookout in North Conway, I could see that the entire mountain was in a cloud, which is about what I expected. I turned right off 302 and proceeded down Base Station Road, where someone was going ten miles per hour below the speed limit. Thankfully, we came to a passing zone, and everyone passed them. Before long, I arrived at the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trailhead. I was surprised by how humid it was. I had been thinking that I might need a jacket when I started, but it was much too warm and humid for that.

I put on an audiobook and proceeded up the Ammo trail. There was a mother/son combination that started right before me, but I quickly passed them. When I got to the intersection between the Ammo trail and the trail coming out of the Cog station, there was a large group of older women hikers right there. Thankfully, someone saw me and encouraged her fellow hikers to let me pass, or it might have been difficult to get past them on the relatively narrow trail. One of the ladies complimented me on my hiking outfit, saying that I looked ready to go to a dinner party. She was referring to the fact that I always wear long pants and a Columbia plaid sun shirt while I am hiking. I do that because it helps keep the sun and bugs off. I hate wearing sunscreen, so I use a sun hat and a sun shirt as an alternative.

This was kind of a unique hike for me. I have been up the Ammo a bunch of times before, probably somewhere around ten times. However, those trips were always in winter, or maybe the shoulder seasons, and the trail is always covered in snow. I had never been on the Ammo without snow, so I was curious as to how different the trail would be. The Ammo is well known for the having a beautiful pond with a waterfall right before it starts to ascent steeply. I had never seen this waterfall before, because it's always been covered in snow and ice. Well, this was my first opportunity to see it, and it didn't disappoint.

Don't go chasing waterfalls...

As the trail ascended, I was surprised at how easy the climbing was. I thought there were two possible reasons for this. Maybe climbing it in summer was just that much easier than climbing in winter. More likely, however, was the fact that I was absorbed in my audiobook, and it kept my mind off the difficulty of climbing.

As I ascended, there were two young boys (probably about fourteen years old) that I kept playing leapfrog with. They were much faster than me when they were moving, but they would stop more frequently. I was more slow and steady. Kind of like a tortoise and the hare thing, I guess. I passed them at one point and pointed out the Cog Base Station to them, which you could see from high up on the trail. They didn't seem especially impressed. I was a little surprised that two boys that young were out there without their parents, but I don't object to a hands-off parenting approach. Quite frankly, I think we could use less helicopter parenting in our society.

There needed to be at least one flower picture in this blog for Dragonfly.

At one point on the climb, I made a wrong turn. The Ammo trail is really hard to follow in the rocky section just below the hut. As I retraced my steps and tried to get back to the trail, I slipped on a wet rock and fell into a small stream. My right side got covered in mud, and my phone case got a little wet, but that was the worst of it. Still, it made me nervous about the idea of climbing down all the wet rocks on the Ammo.

Eventually, I made it to the Lakes of the Clouds Hut. This was only the second time that I had seen the building open. The first time was when I actually stayed there. The last time I was at Lakes of the Clouds, the building was so covered in snow that you could walk right up onto the roof. I ate a quick snack, refilled my water bottle, and was soon on my way.

There was some type of a rig just above the hut that was studying air quality.

The hike from the hut to Mt Washington's summit is always longer than I remember. I always think it's about a mile, but it's actually closer to a mile and a half. I tried hiking without my audiobook for a little while in this section, but quickly abandoned that idea and put the audiobook back on. It's amazing how important the mental piece is when it comes to hiking. If I can keep my mind occupied with something other than the physical difficulty, I can hike much farther and feel less exhausted by it.

On the way up to the summit, I passed one of the biggest swarms of black flies that I have ever seen. I was glad to have on long sleeves and long pants as I made my way through. I don't know what it was about that spot that attracted then, but clearly something was going on.

Click on the picture to see the full-sized image (if you dare).

The two boys passed me again on the way up to the summit. I felt like the weather was a little cold up there for their T-shirts and shorts, but it wasn't terrible. I would estimate that the temperature was around 50 with a wind speed of about 30 mph at the summit. I made my way to the summit and grabbed a quick picture up there, and then I headed to the visitor center.

There won't be any singing "I Can See Clearly Now" today.

I had been in the visitor center once before, but only in the entryway. That was during my first summit of the mountain, which I think was in May 2018. This time, I did stop in the entryway to eat my PB&J, but I eventually wandered in and explored the entire place. It was much bigger than I expected, with a food court and a gift shop and a bunch of other things. The real bathrooms were appreciated.

I looked for the Lizzie Bourne Memorial that I remembered being there before, but I couldn't find it. Lizzie Bourne was a girl in her early twenties who was the second fatality on Mt Washington, back in the mid-1800s. The irony is that she and her family were trying to get to the Tiptop House, which would have provided them shelter, but she died maybe a hundred yards away from it. Even in bad conditions, they might have at least been able to crawl to it if they knew it was there. Sometimes bad luck and bad decisions can be a fatal combination, unfortunately.

Speaking of bad decisions, I wanted to avoid making one of those. I was not thrilled about the idea of going back down Ammonoosuc with all the wet rocks. I felt like I would have fallen several more times. Thus, I decided to ask the Information desk at the visitor center for their recommendation. Would it be better to go down Ammonoosuc or hike over to the Jewell Trail and go down that way? I knew Jewell was longer, but would it be safer? The woman at the Information desk was firm in her answer. Jewell was always the safer trail. With that information in hand, I texted Dragonfly about my change of plans and then started to head down the mountain.

As I hiked the Gulfside Trail over to Jewell, I saw a couple weird sights. First, I realized that you couldn't really see the very steep drop into the Great Gulf that was off to my right, so I made sure to stay very clear of the edge. Second, I saw the Cog Railway come up through the cloud. Some people on board waved to me, and I waved back.

Ridin' on a ghost train...

After hiking a while on the Gulfside Trail, I turned on to Jewell. I have always disliked the top of Jewell, because much like the top of Ammonoosuc, it's just a pile of rocks with no clear direction. Once I picked my way down that section, though, I finally found my way onto dirt path. From there on, the hiking got a lot easier. Unfortunately, the temperatures also warmed up rapidly, and I found myself sweating in the heat and humidity. The bugs got really bad again towards the bottom of the trail, but I just increased my speed to try to keep them from swarming my face. The sun finally came out as well, and I had to dig my hat out of my pack to prevent sunburns.

By the time I got back to the parking lot, the entire hike had taken seven hours, from about 8:30 AM to about 3:30 PM. That's pretty slow considering the low amount of distance, but not bad when you take into account the elevation gain. I had a long conversation with a lady in the parking lot. She was originally from the Netherlands, and she discussed the differences between the Alps and the White Mountains. She also encouraged me to go visit the Mount Washington Hotel, saying that she used to work there. I would like to see it up close at some point, so maybe I will take her advice. Speaking of advice, here's some for you. Always remember that you can't take flight until you spread your wings.