Washington (6,288') with kin!

I learned something new today. I learned that a sure sign of having spent a drop-dead beautiful day in the mountains can be confirmed by the fact that when you are choosing pictures from the trip to upload, you select all of them (except the two which were duplicates).

A truly amazing day spent hiking 9.7 miles with 4,300' of elevation gain.....
(Skip to the bottom of the post to go directly to the link for the pictures.)

We got up at 04:45 and were on the road from Ravenstead within 15 minutes (obviously there were no women going with us ;) After a quick stop at Aroma Joe's for a java fix we drove straight to Pinkham Notch at the base of Mt Washington and arrived just before 7am. We scoffed down a fine breakfast at the AMC lodge then packed up our gear and hit the trail. First up, a group photo at the avalanche warning sign at the start of the Tuckerman's Ravine Trail...

Via the Tuck's trail we would need to climb 4,300' over 4.2 miles. Half of those miles are pretty typical of the White Mountains....

In under 2 hours we reached the Hermit Lake Shelters. We had traveled 2.4 miles and gained 1,600 feet...

Here are some shots looking up at the headwall of Tuckerman's, as well as Boott Spur and Lion's Head - all from Hermit Lake...

After a snack break we headed back up the trail. Climbing up into the base of the bowl of Tuckerman's is breath-taking. Waterfalls, towering cliffs, lush foliage - plus this is where we start to run into steeper sections of the trail...

Soon we reach the base of the headwall. From this point it is only a little over a mile to the summit, but while you're on it, it feels more like 3 miles....

Eventually we reached the top of the headwall. Of course we still had "The Rockpile" left to go before reaching the summit...

But eventually, we reached our destination! And once we finished waiting for a bunch of people who had driven to the summit to have their picture taken at the summit sign (buttheads), the four of us proudly displayed the RKN banner as it tried to get away in the 70+mph winds...

With it being in the 90's at home, 53 at the summit felt pretty sweet. The wind was pretty strong - 40-55 steady with 70+ gusts. Shortly after we took our lunch break and were on our way down, we experienced what had to be 80+ winds on the Nelson Crag Trail. A bit tough to take pictures when its blowing that hard, but there were plenty of opportunities later on to take in the amazing scenery...

I've hiked a lot of mountains. I've even climbed this one 9 times now. But this hike will always be one of my favorite memories - partly for the amazing weather and views, but mostly for the fact that I got to enjoy it with kin.


The full picture set: http://tinyurl.com/7f93px3