On Sunday, I climbed Mount Washington with 3 friends, Marty, Gary, and Stel. We drove up on Saturday night and stayed at a hotel in Lincoln, NH. In the morning, we drove about 30 minutes to the Cog Railway parking lot and went up the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail. It was a great route, with modest slopes until the Gem Pool and big waterfall. After that, it was very steep, but with great views and numerous brook crossings and smal waterfalls and cascades. It took us about 3 hours to get to Lake of the Clouds hut, where we ate lunch. Then we hiked another 1 1/2 hours to the top of Mount Washington. It was fairly crowded on top with hikers, Cog Railway riders, and Auto Road visitors. In fact, we had to wait in line for about 20 minutes just to take a photo at the summit marker!
We stayed on the summit about an hour then hiked down to the hut, where we had a family-style dinner with 95 other people and later enjoyed watching a beautiful sunset. The kids who work at the hut introduced themselves during dinner and I was surprised to find that 3 of them were students from Colby College, my alma mater, and that we had some of the same professors. It was a real experience sleeping (or trying to sleep) in a cramped bunkbed with 15 other people in the room and total darkness in the hut due to limited electricity! In the morning, we had breakfast, then came back down the same trail in about 2 1/2 hours. My legs are pretty sore but I'm happy I was able to climb the highest peak in the Northeast and enjoyed doing it with friends.
I assume I am one of the only people on the planet who has climbed Masada in Israel and Mount Washington in NH in the same month!
Here's a link to an interesting article about the Lake of the Clouds hut:
http://www.onenewengland.com/article.php?id=55
