My dad got my grandfather a ticket up the Mt Washington Cog Railway for Father’s Day. He invited other family to get a ticket and join them. That would have been so easy but being that my Grandfather is a huge inspiration to me and my hiking journey, I thought it would be the best, and maybe only, opportunity for him to witness me hiking. And so, I set the intention to hike up Mt. Washington and meet them at the top.
As the date approached, I kept my eyes on the forecast. June was unseasonably precipitous and my heart sank as I read the Mt Washington Observatory’s high summit forecast for the weekend. The Saturday prior featured thunderstorms, gusts of winds up to 50 mph and pouring rain. They promised that Sunday would be foggy, with views up to 25 feet, and winds between 30 and 45 mph. “Light rain possible” it read. We technically had gear for any weather so at the eleventh hour we went for it.
The 4000 footer Facebook groups advised me that the Jewell trail would be better than Amonoosuc, a trail I had already completed and was comfortable with, in the rain because Amonoosuc was steeper and had more dicey sections. They were about the same length, so I consulted the recording I had of the last time I hiked Washington to estimate the time we needed to begin hiking. I didn’t want to leave too much wiggle room in the plan because we’d be hiking with a dog and dogs are not allowed in the huts. Any time we made it in advance of the train, we could potentially be exposed up top, stagnant, and cold. I thought it would take us 2 hours and 15 minutes to summit. The train was to arrive at 9:30 am and depart at 10:30 am. I planned to put us on the summit at 9:45 by starting our hike at 7:15.
We parked in the hiker section of the Cog lot, paying 10 dollars a head to shave off half a mile. Between quick bathroom stops and layer adjustments we began hiking at 7:30. Already 15 minutes behind schedule. We headed to the Jewell Link trail to meet up with Jewell and our plans were immediately ruined. The torrential rain of the last week raised water levels in the river so drastically that we did not see any string of exposed rocks with which we could use to cross and it even looked too fast and deep to take our shoes and socks off and cross that way. Amonoosuc trail it was. We made up the lost 0.1 quickly and settled into the easy incline which is the start of the Amo trail. I knew this was just a form of instant gratification. There would be river crossings later further up but I had to imagine they wouldn’t be as bad.
The entire ascent was just as the Observatory promised. The fog was palpable, we were hiking through a cloud, but it never coalesced into rain. The water crossings were very manageable. The high water levels didn’t seem to affect the nature of the crossings on that particular trail. On one of them, I stepped with too much force and sent a splash up my leg. My sock was immediately soaked. No matter though, I packed another pair and I quickly switched them out to ensure that my wet socks didn’t soak the inside of my boots. The only reason this happened, was because I left my shell pants in my bag and chose to wear leggings. My shell pants are great for the winter since they’re water resistant and insulating but I thought they’d be much too hot to wear hiking that day. The extra gear in my bag due to layers I wasn’t wearing and the emergency gear I wouldn’t hike Washington without, caused me to fatigue more quickly than I envisioned. I offloaded some weight to my fiancé but was still gassed. I checked my watch often to make sure were were going the proper pace. We needed to finish 1 mile every half hour to meet our steam train time window.
We weren’t too far past the lake of the clouds hut, advancing in the alpine portion of the hike to Washington, when I realized that we were further behind than I calculated. We had two hours logged when I checked my dad’s location and found that he was on the summit. It was 9:30. The summit was under a cloud and I had no sense of how far we were but I knew I wanted a break. I kept my head down and trudged along. I didn’t allow myself to look up. I kept a rhythm, my eyes scanning the terrain right under me and I snuck a look at my watch every couple of minutes. We were nearing 10 o’clock. I so badly wanted to stop. I looked up to see how far ahead my partner was when I saw the weather tower emerge from the cloud. I was tremendously relieved to be done. I ran the rest of the way to the summit hut to greet my family and claim the win.
It was a very rewarding experience to see my grandparents and my sister and my whole crew on top of that mountain. It was a shared memory I never envisioned having with that group. We took the obligatory photos in front of the summit marker. We congregated around a bench in the hut entrance that was just shy of the “No dogs past here” sign and caught our breaths as we heard stories of the history of the Cog railway that they learned on the steam train. We recounted how the 2 hour and 39 minute journey up wasn’t bad at all. How our feet were dry and we were toasty warm.
When it was time to part ways, they took their seats in the comfy train and we were immediately met with the kind of weather I was really hoping to avoid that day. Not half a mile into our descent the temperature dropped seemingly 10 degrees and the whole cloud fell on top of us. The whipping wind plus the cold rain enticed us to race down to tree line in an attempt to escape the chilling effect. The water dripping off of our shells soaked our pants and one misfortunate step each into the river beginning to form in the trail soaked our socks and, in turn, the inside of our boots. Every step from then on came with this squishing feeling, like we were walking on loaded sponges.
No part of that descent was fun. It’s not fun being soaked. It’s not fun worrying about whether your boots will ever dry out properly. It’s not fun worrying about your dog and whether you should put his winter coat on him or whether that will just get wet and make him colder somehow. He lost the pep to his step and was just calculating where to put his paws to get past each rocky face. Normally, the descent is when I have enough air in my lungs to start chatting for the first time on a hike, but we didn’t exchange many words that day. It was my poor judgement and compromises for a summit memory that put us in that dreary position.
After a long 2 hours, we were back to our car. My dog began to try and futilely lick off all the water on his body, we cranked the heat, and silently exchanged some Coca Cola and Pringles on the drive back to my dad’s condo where we met up again with my family. A hot shower and some dry clothes fixed our moods and we were able to enjoy the rest of our Father’s day.
In the meantime, we vow never to hike again if there is rain in the forecast. Although that being said, we did stop by REI on the way home to purchase rain covers for our bags and rain pants. Just in case.
The Wild East 