Mount Washington - Winter Ascent

The foolishly full moon circled the snow-laden frozen lake outside my lighted abode where the snowshoes sat idly by the doorway. If you know me at all, you know I had no choice. Soon I was running pretzel shapes through the powdered place that in summertime I am swimming beneath. I ran up the camp road and on the way down I realized this was something I would like to do more of.

I found myself looking up all of the 4,000+ foot peaks in the northeast. Atop that list stood Mount Washington, located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. That is, within striking distance.

I looked at weather.com, hoping that there would be a day when the weather wasn't so bad. Something inside me named intuition was telling me that I shouldn't go when it's below zero degrees especially if that's before factoring in wind chill. Mount Washington is a proud 1918 meters in height above sea level, and a notorious wind catcher! So it was that I had my sights on Wednesday. As the days drew closer through the weekend the forecast grew even more generous. My major concern was going alone. I was OK with it, but knew that I would play things cautiously and question my route-finding more, being solo.

Tuesday night, like most of the nights that week, I went to the Maine Rock Gym to climb. I ran into Ben Smith, a buddy there, and asked him what he was doing the next day. Voila! I have a partner for Mt. Washington! He was psyched on the idea and thanks to him my departure time of 9am turned into our departure time of 7am from my house and 8am from his.
Logistics for this hike aren't very interesting. We just ladeled up our food, extra clothing, and beverages in our packs and started off hiking. In hindsight, we should've strapped on our snowshoes right off the bat, but no. We trekked it in our boots, slipping a bit for the first mile or so on the wide path.
After an hour, we came upon the Lion's Head Trail and suited up! The trail narrowed and soon steepened into some technical sections where crampons were preferable but snowshoes sufficed. Roots and branches helped provide extra protection for some marginal foot placements.
It's worth noting that from the car through the lower tree sections we were receiving snowfall and enshrouded in trees and cloud cover. The higher we got it was merely foggy with visibility of no more than 100 meters or so. Exiting the trees was fabulous. We were in a winter wonderland. The wind was intangible. Everything seemed still aside from the clouds surrealistically swirling around us. Trees were replaced by smaller vegetation.All of a sudden, the clouds disseminated into thinner air and the sun shone gloriously down upon us. I looked up, expecting a holy grail or the holy mother or trumpeteers but all I could see was the sun, righteously beaming its rings of heat in every direction. I laughed hysterically and stopped pushing onward and upward to look around. The clouds spun over Tuckerman's Ravine, disappearing before they could completely blanket the hill. Mount Washington rose above it all with a baby blue starless day sky backdrop. I felt like I was born to be doing stuff like this. The air was heavy on the freshness. The light permeated everything, glistening off of the snowy branches. I dropped my insulating layers for a mere windbreaker. I wore a permanent smile and started running! I ran out of breathe quickly and Ben took up the lead.
We summitted before 3pm. The puffy clouds were well below us and stretched as far as my human eye could see. We changed our clothes. Ben put on an extra pair of socks. We snacked quickly as it was markedly colder at the very top than anywhere else. Happy at our half-way success, we soaked it in and began our descent!
Ben reflected on the reel and feel of the day and the beautiful consequences of spontaneous adventures. When will I see something like this again? It's all too easy to forget that certain moments are destined to be unique. I watch as Ben heads back into the clouds, and soak up this rare perspective of the world, normally seen only through the window of an airplane.The magnificence of the experience - the views, summitting with snowshoes, sliding down the smooth parts on our bums, orange slush puppies, stunts by Ben, the quietude of it all - was purely magnetic. My mind keeps pulling me back to the achromatic winter scene when we pushed our way out of the clouds and the sun and sky turned our technical day into a technicolor array.What a way to go.