Elevation: 6,288 (New Hampshire's Tallest, New England's Tallest)
Route: Crawford Path/Appalachian Trail/Gulfside Trail/Jewell Trail
Arya's Take: Excited, but confused as to where all these people came from
Even though things had gone quite well up Mount Monroe (well, after we got up the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail), I knew that we were still in for a challenge up the shoulder of Mount Washington to the summit, if we were going to be able to summit it at all. One thing my Dad instilled in us from an early age hiking was NEVER, EVER underestimate Mount Washington.
Mount Washington is 6,288 feet tall, and is the highest point in the United States East of the Mississippi and North of the Mason-Dixon Line. It dominates northern New England, visible on a clear day both from St. Johnsbury, VT and the Green Mountains to the West, and Portland, ME and the Atlantic Ocean from the East. The native Abenakis believed it (understandably) to be the home of their gods, and it was first summited by a European when Darby Field did so in 1642, though it didn't get its name until an expedition of geologist hiked what would be known as the Presidential Range in 1784 and gave the tallest peak they saw the most impressive name they could think of.
Through the 19th century Mount Washington became a popular destination for hikers, and to reach the summit, we'd be heading up from Lakes of the Clouds Hut on the Crawford Path, considered the oldest continuously maintained footpath in the United States, being cut and created in 1819. In 1869 the Cog Railway was built, allowing more people easier access to the summit, and a hotel and newspaper were even founded. In fact, the numbers became so great that the whole point behind the 4,000 Footer Club in the first place was to encourage people to spread out and see more of the White Mountains, and help save the environment in and around the Presidential and Franconia Ranges.
But here's the thing about Mount Washington: it can be an incredibly dangerous place. Three independent storm tracks intersect on its summit, and it has some of the worst unpredictable weather in the world. Since the mid-19th century when records started to be kept, over 140 people have died on Mount Washington or the surrounding mountains, making it one of the deadliest mountains in the world. Even in the summer, the weather can change in an instant, and it can go from being sunny and warm to cold and snowy. Hell, in 1934 the Mount Washington Observatory (which in those days was just a wooden shack chained to the mountaintop) recorded the highest wind speed in human history, 231 miles per hour (before the wind speed instrument broke). Whenever you pass treeline in the Presidentials, big yellow signs warn you to SERIOUSLY, TURN BACK IF THE WEATHER IS SHITTY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. It's a big deal.
So even though we had climbed Mount Monroe and the summit of Washington is only a mile and a half from Lakes of the Clouds and it was warm and overcast the day that we were climbing, well, like I said, you can't take Washington for granted.
After stopping back by the Hut to drop off Arya's poop bag from earlier (thankfully the bag was biodegradable so I didn't feel so bad dropping it in their latrine), we set out on the aforementioned Crawford Path, which over this particular stretch is coexistent with the Appalachian Trail. Above treeline we had to rely on the rock cairns to know where the trail went, which I suppose would have made me nervous if there wasn't a steady stream of hikers all the way up to Washington. Getting lost wouldn't be an issue; seriously, it felt like we were in one of those old pictures of the Klondike Gold Rush, with hundreds of people waiting in line to hike up a mountain.
Arya took the opportunity leaving the Lakes of the Clouds to go for a little swim, which was funny to me because 1. Arya doesn't really know how to swim and 2. She seemed genuinely confused as to what she had gotten herself into when she waded into the water. I suppose it was a good start, though it left us somewhat behind my brother and our friends, and with the sheer number of people that were with us on the trail, it looked like Arya and I were going to be hiking by ourselves for a while.
But! Turns out about halfway to the summit, as you really start to get to the summit cone of Washington (and the towers and antennas of the observatory start to recede), my brother and friends felt bad about leaving us behind, and stopped to have us catch up. Not only did they offer to take Arya off my hands for a bit, but they ran into a mutual friend who just happened to be a coupld of hikers behind me. It was rather surreal; all of a sudden they heard a familiar voice, completely out of context, and BOOM! Friend on the trail. They actually ended up hiking with us all the way to the top, though they had slightly more ambitious plans after bagging Washington.
After what seemed like forever, the big rocks of treeline started to get a little smaller, and we emerged at the summit, replete with sand paths, concrete walkways, a food court, and a CRAPTON of tourists who either drove up the Auto Road, or took the Cog Railway. It's something that you never really get used to as a hiker, and it's kind of a shame when you get right down to it. I mean here you are, having just conquered one of the most dangerous mountains in the world, the highest in the region, and you're confronted with a bunch of people in sandals, who barely could be bothered to get out of their air-conditioned cars. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but I always felt like hikers were a bit of a novelty to the tourists, almost amazed that someone would climb this thing with their own two feet when they didn't have to. I mean for God's sake, there was such a line to get your picture taken at the actual summit (a big cairn with a sign, and the USGS elevation cap) that we didn't even bother. I guess technically we didn't get to the very tip top of the mountain that day.
And Arya, as I have come to notice when we reach the summit of any mountain, still wanted to keep climbing, almost disappointed that we'd made it to the top. The hordes of tourists were a welcome distraction (usually she just whines and whines until we start the climb down), and she made the day of a couple of people by being a friendly, bubbly, energetic puppy. She also tried to eat ALL the food. A recurring theme with her, and the bounty of fried food from the cafeteria certainly didn't help.
Honestly, from there we didn't spend too much time on the summit. There are a lot of things to see up there, including a museum about the observatory, a couple of older buildings (one, the Tip Top House, dates from the early 1850s), and an observation deck where you can look out over the whole of the Whites, including the impressive Northern Presidential Peaks of Mounts Adams, Madison, and Jefferson. The high clouds that had been with us for most of the day started to descend, though, and the views didn't stay impressive for long. After some group shots and a bathroom break, we took a look at our watches and realized that we still had quite a ways to go, taking the Jewell Trail (by way of the Gulfside Trail) back down to the Cog Railway base. It's a nice gently sloping trail (in contrast to Ammonoosuc Ravine), but we had a couple miles of ridgewalking to get there, as it comes up between Mounts Washington and Clay. We said goodbye to our temporary companions, and headed out.
And MAN, as much as I hate hiking straight up? That's how much I love ridgewalking above treeline. It's awesome. Wonderful views in 360 degrees, a clear sense of accomplishment, and since you've gained a lot of your elevation already, it's really not super taxing, either. The Gulfside Trail gave us the bonus of traversing the Cog Railway tracks directly (there was a rather impressive amount of soot and coal littering the trail around the tracks...kind of makes me understand why they're making the switch to Biodiesel-powered engines), as well as putting us right up against the geographic feature that gives the trail it's name, The Great Gulf. 
Eventually we got to the Jewell Trail spur on the shoulder of Mount Clay, and it was time to descend. Mount Clay is actually above 5,000 feet, much like the rest of the Northern Prezzies, but does not "count", as its peak lacks a minimum of 200 feet of prominence from the surrounding ridge. It's a nice little mountain, but is essentially a sub-peak of Mount Washington, and getting so close to counting in the Presidential Range but not quite getting there is, in my mind, a perfect honor for a mountain named after Henry Clay (Incidentally, there was a state law passed in the New Hampshire legislature in 2003 to re-name Mount Clay "Mount Reagan" because apparently we need to name everything after Ronald Reagan now. The USGS politely told the New Hampshire legislature to go fuck itself).
Arya desperately wanted to climb Mount Clay, but by that point it was getting on into the mid-to-late afternoon, and we really needed to get back to our car. We also paid an additional price for the trails we'd taken, as while we gained a lot of our elevation at once to start the day, we lost it very, very gradually, which is why the Jewell Trail is such a popular trail to hike UP Washington. There were a lot of switchbacks, a lot of slow ridges, especially around treeline. It felt like we were hiking through waist-high scrub trees forever, and we were no closer to the bottom. Our day-long games of "I'm thinking of something that starts with the letter X" and "Name an athlete whose first name starts with the same letter of this athlete's last name" even petered out, as we all got tired and wanted to just be fucking done already.
And that's kind of the dirty little secret of hiking. The worst part isn't starting off and knowing how much you still have left to climb, it's not having clouds roll in to obscure your view, and it's not the letdown of leaving the summit and your sense of accomplishment to realize you're only really halfway. It's that inevitable moment when you know you're getting reasonably close to the end, but you're not there yet, and all the exciting things are over with and where the hell is that parking lot?
It was even worse this time around for a couple of reasons. First, Arya didn't seem to tire out at all, and forced me to slalom a couple of trees in her search for exotic animal poop to eat. Second, the light really did start to fade, and I began to wonder if I should have packed a headlamp. And third, I really couldn't predict when we'd be done. Growing up hiking, our Dad used to use a bag of tricks to keep us whiny kids motivated, and, despite my best efforts, I still use them on myself when I'm feeling tired or sore. One of these was to say "well, the average speed for a person over level terrain is 3 miles an hour", and then try to extrapolate our speed and how far we've gone (and how far we had to go). This is actually a good motivator. The second was to say that we had to keep hiking for X amount of minutes before we could stop for water or GORP. The third, which is almost as useful as the first one, is to try and memorize the trail when you're hiking up it.
For instance, maybe I notice that after 20 minutes, we step over a large fallen tree, or pass a large rock. Often the White Mountain Guide will say something like "trail crosses Pemigewasset River at 1.2 miles", which helps a lot. That way, when I see that tree or rock or river again when we're descending, I know that we're only a handful of minutes away from being able to take our hiking boots off in the car (one of life's top 10 pleasures, btw). And this usually works because, being a day-tripper on average, we were simply hiking up one trail to the summit, and then hiking back down the same trail. But noooo, we HAD to hike two mountains in the same day...
So even though I'd hiked the Jewell Trail before (again, UP), I really had no idea where we were in relation to the bottom. This was really kind of frustrating, and I found myself uncharacteristically charging ahead of the group, though part of that was due to Arya. There were moments we had to stop and wait for the rest of them (though they were never out of earshot), and for a while there I resorted to scouring the guidebook to see if there were any landmarks of note. Alas, all it said was that we'd cross a stream basically RIGHT as we came into the Cog base area, and that was it. So it wasn't exactly the best moment for me, since really once you go below treeline on the descent, the really fun stuff is over.
Rather amusingly, one of our number (and the only female among us besides Arya) had to pee really badly as we were winding down, and since this is much more of a production for her than it was for us (even Arya didn't have that problem), we formed a scouting party up and down the trail in case other hikers came through, since no one wants to be caught like that. I suppose we didn't need to go down the trail, though, since no one would be starting their hike up Washington at 5:00, but whatever. And I kid you not, like 3 minutes after she finished, we emerged at the Cog base, and its restaurant, snack bar, and indoor bathrooms. Oh, well.
After coming to the mutual understanding that we all smelled and there was nothing we could do about it, we piled into the car, with Arya FINALLY curling up and passing the fuck out, snoring the whole way home.
-M
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