Summer in the White Mountains
In July, we did a three(ish) day hike in New Hampshire, which I wrote about ahead of time here. I’m a little late in updating this, but we had a great time — despite not accomplishing all of the summits we had hoped to! We had postponed the trip a few weeks due to bad weather in the area where we had planned to hike, and we’re glad we did. The weekend we were supposed to be hiking, there was a huge storm in the valley that also whipped winds up the ridge, making what would have been our day-2 traverse very unsafe. Instead, we postponed our reservations at the huts and set out a few weeks later.
Day 1 (Saturday): The plan was to drive up to the mountains, ditch the car at the AMC lodge and then hike from Pinkham Notch Visitors Center to to Lakes of the Clouds Hut via the Tuckerman Ravine Trail to Tuckerman Crossover to the hut. The day was SO gorgeous, and we had a solid pace going for the first few hours, that we decided instead to summit Mt. Washington on this day (instead of Day 2) and then descend to Lakes. This made for a tough day, especially considering I’d run a 10-mile road race on Friday evening before driving to Boston to spend the night, but it was so worth it to see those views and get a snack/late lunch at the summit of Mt. Washington!
We then headed down to Lakes of the Clouds, which so far is one of my favorite AMC huts. My dad used to stay there with his dad (and brother) when they’d go hiking in the White Mountains back in the 60’s and 70’s. It’s been renovated since, but remains a really stunning location to spend a night!
In full-service season, dinner and breakfast are included in your stay at the AMC huts. In self-service season (which we did in 2016) you have to pack in your own food. Needless to say, after the climb up Tuckerman Ravine, we were both hungry and also happy that we didn’t have to carry the extra food weight up the mountain.
Another really cool part of hiking the AMC huts in the summer is that they open up the extra space in the huts for Appalachian Trail Thru-Hikers. In exchange for helping with the cooking and cleaning, the hikers are allowed to use the common spaces of the hut to sleep (usually they rack out on the dining room benches). They share some really awesome stories!
Day 2 (Sunday): The big day! Originally, we had planned to summit Mt. Washington this day after skirting the summit the day before, but instead did the opposite. We took the Westside traverse around — you guessed it! — the west face of Mt. Washington, following it across the train tracks and linking up with the Appalachian Trail. Perhaps the coolest part of this weekend excursion was that my cousin, Dane, was in the final part of his Thru-Hike of the AT, and was only about 100 or so miles south of us. It was really cool to be on the same trail as him, even though we were so far apart, and see his photos a few days later when he was standing in the same spot! We left him a note at Lakes of the Clouds, too.
The wind really picked up on Sunday morning, so after we crossed Mt. Washington and hopped onto the AT, we decided it was best to take the most direct route to our next stop, Madison Spring Hut. We had planned to summit Mt. Adams and Mt. Jefferson, but we were really getting beat up by the wind and ready to get to the hut. While we arrived pretty early on in the day (like 2 pm) and probably would‘ve had plenty of time to bag both peaks, we think we made the right call. After all, this is supposed to be vacation! And, it turned out that Monday would be the toughest day after all.
Day 3 (Monday): We left the Madison Spring Hut bright and early with a renewed energy. The Osgood trail took us up and over Mt. Madison, which we summited by 8:30AM and started the long walk down. A rookie mistake was assuming we’d move so much faster downhill than we did uphill. It was certainly faster, but by the time we reached the Mt. Washington Auto Road and only had a few miles left in our hike, we were both super fatigued. Charlie’s knees and my hips were really bothering me, and I think we were both just mentally exhausted as well.
We had planned to potentially stay at a hotel on Monday night and head home on Tuesday, but we did get down early enough that we could comfortably drive home that night, so we did.
We really enjoyed the trip, especially the beautiful summer weather. However, as many of the Thru-hikers told us, White Mountain hiking is some of the toughest in the Northeast, and we need to remember that as we set our expectations for future trips. Because, there certainly will be!