...and Mt. Washington bites the dust!

Trip Details
Date: March 7^th, 2016
Total Distance: 10.66 mi (via Trimble Outdoors Navigator Pro on iPhone 4S)
Total Time: 5 hours 24 minutes
Total Elevation: 3937 ft gained
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With the 2015-2016 winter season coming to a close, we wanted to get one more hike in. The problem was the weather forecast for the last week of winter was terrible. Monday, which was the day we wanted to go looked like we were going to battle rain or snow. Come Sunday, the forecast had solidified for the most part and looked like we had all morning and early afternoon clear of any weather. The National Weather Service had all summits over 4000 ft listed as obscured for Monday. The hope was that this forecast was wrong, but we planned three trips all around the Crawford Notch area. Coming from the east, I have great views of The Presidentials at a few spots and one great lookout just before Crawford Notch State Park. As I hit this lookout, I saw Mt. Washington without a cloud nearby. I quickly checked the current conditions on my phone (thankfully data services have gotten better for Sprint in this area) and it said winds were currently less than 20 mph. BishopX and I knew it was time to take on Mt. Washington so we headed towards the Cog Railway and the Jewell Trail.

Layers were quickly coming off as it was just warm enough out that a jacket was not needed as we made our way in the trees of the Jewell Trail. We wore microspikes all day but there were plenty of bare trail areas where we were seriously tempted to take them off. Then we would get to an ice flow and were glad we kept them on. As we broke the treeline, the wind started to pick up but the summit was still in the clear.

Looking towards the summit as we came out of the trees.

Summit with no clouds!

Looking towards the Pemigewasset Wilderness and Franconia Ridge.

Close-up of the Twins and Lafayette.

Cog Railway Base Station and Brenton Woods

Like the lower part of the trail this was a mix of bare trail (rocks instead of soil though) and ice. Getting use to rock hopping with the spikes was tough at first. We actually took our spikes off a couple of times, but then as soon as we hit another snow/ice section it just slowed down progress as we would have to put the spikes back on. Eventually we just pushed through. Once we got to the top of the ridge, the trail had more ice and the wind significantly picked up. At one point the Gulfside Trail gets very close to the edge of the Great Gulf and it was filled with snow and ice. We avoided this and just headed straight for the Cog Railway tracks. Besides the cold wind whipping right at us, this was the easiest part as it was all ice but it was flat. The wind was taking my breath away at times. We followed the tracks around to the summit.


The summit in the winter is interesting. Everything is quiet (except for the wind) and few if any people are up there. We actually had it all to ourselves for a bit. No line at the summit sign in the winter. We took some photos and then got into a corner under some stairs to change layers. The wind had picked up to about 40 mph and it was making things cold very quickly.

This is probably why I will never take Boomer up these types of summits. We saw the dog that had its paws cut up just before we got to the summit. 

The webcam

Northern Presidentials

Looking out towards the Franconia Ridge.

Franconia Ridge in the background and South Twin in the foreground.

The Carters and Wildcats

A week ago there was a lot more snow on those ski trails.

No rime ice this time of year.

For the way down we stuck with the Trinity Heights Connector to get down to the Cog Railway crossing sooner. We just tried to stay between the rocks and on the ice. This was a quicker and more direct way then making our way all the way around by following the tracks from the summit. We crossed the tracks and then followed them down to where the Westside Trail crosses them. We then made our way back to the Gulfside Trail and started our descent down the Jewell Trail.

Around 1330, snowflakes started dropping and this was almost 90 minutes earlier than predicted. Thankfully, we had just entered the trees at this time. Not too far into the trees there is a tent site where we stopped to enjoy a 16 oz Snickers bar, which had frozen and probably caused some dental damage. Oh well, it was delicious. We then continued on the trail and not too long after it started freezing rain and this continued all the way back to the car. It was not raining enough that we needed to put our rain jackets on, but it was enough to notice it. The excitement and adrenaline from conquering Mt. Washington had kicked in so I did not really mind.

We closed out the season with Mt. Washington and it felt great to not have that one looming over us anymore. We will just have to wait and see what next winter brings us for weather!

The mileage is only off by approximately a half of mile, but since we left the trail and followed the Cog Railway at times I am not completely sure.