Dateline: August 20, 2014- near North Conway New Hampshire, White Mountain National Forest
Big family join-up at my mom’s house in Maine on August 19 set us up for a dawn assault on the Mount Washington summit today. My hiking companions were my husband, Phil, and my eldest daughter, Laura. Arrival at the trailhead for the Tuckerman’s Ravine Trail was closer to 11 am than dawn, however, especially since Laura ran into a couple of close college chums who were working the summer as guides for the Appalachian Mountain Club and they got chatting. Weather, perfect, sunny, warm, no wind. The worst weather in the world and the highest recorded wind speeds (231 mph) occur on Mt. Washington, so don’t try this unless things look good at the base of the mountain- no telling what you’ll find at the summit, 6,288 feet up. The highest peak east of the Mississippi.
We wended our way without any problems, admiring the views and taking some pictures
UNTIL we hit a snag. Phil, who hikes annually in the Adirondacks with 20 something year old men was slowing up, feeling dizzy, stopping frequently, and gasping for breath. We were a couple hours in and working pretty hard when it hit. He didn’t want to stop and we were above tree line, climbing over large boulders in a scree field.
We thought about turning back but we could see the summit and the hike down was going to be daunting in that condition, so we continued, slowly, to climb. We found him a bench, sat him down at the summit- which was crawling with people who had driven up or taken the train. Laura stayed with him while I searched for a shuttle down- and although I would have thought there would be frequent shuttles, I would have thought wrong. We waited perhaps an hour for the last shuttle of the day to go. There also was no medical care to be had at the summit- it’s so easy to drive up, and so many people do it, I would have thought…
We descended via shuttle, Phil was doing fine- seemed to be blitzed by the experience but recovered quickly and we were absolutely famished from the climb. We found a terrific sandwich shop and ate Cuban sandwiches, then drove back to Maine, and counted our blessings. No wind, no weather, even at the summit. So lucky. Besides the health scare, we had a wonderful time. Another successful “dreadful hike,” a family saying coined by Laura when she was 3 1/2 years old.
