presidential traverse

You reach up, pulling yourself to the next rock. As you pass tree line, your exposure to the wind increases. Nearing the summit, you lose whatever protection from the elements the lower stretches of the mountain afforded. You clamber on. The wind howls. You huddle behind a rock, putting on the extra clothing you've carried on your back. You stand up, a cloud enveloping you. Visibility diminishes to thirty feet. Twenty. Ten.
Welcome to Mt. Washington.
I just returned from hiking New Hampshire's Presidential Range. The Presidentials are the pinnacle of mountain hiking in the eastern U.S. If that sounds like a left-handed compliment, it ain't necessarily so. I'm told that most western mountain trails employ copious switchbacks, but in the Presidentials you can go straight up. The jewel is Washington, at 6288 feet. There are a smattering of 5000-footers, plus scads of 4000-footers. Washington long held the world record for highest earth surface wind (231 mph), a singular result of being at the confluence of three airstreams. Suck on that, Colorado and Kilimanjaro. In summer, you can go from Speedos at the bottom to long johns up top (or the other way round, if you crave attention). There are a few buildings up there, chained to the mountain. No Starbucks, but the visitor center does have a museum and gift shop. You can see astounding views all the way to the ocean, but you probably won't: 70mph winds inside a cloud are more likely. The summit is a tourist mini-mecca, thanks to the cog train and auto road, but i don't find this as depressing as most. Sure, it can be jarring to arrive up top having climbed thousands of feet through a hurricane, then suddenly spy a 500-lb. couple in flip-flops walk by...but i see opportunity for adventure there. The railway could break down, and passing UFOs could render autos undriveable. Then? A Darwinian day-o-reckonin'!
This year, my fellow hikers were my sister's family and my Dad. Wearing braces, i pounded away on my knees for four days, experiencing none of the tenderness or tightness that had plagued me in recent years. It's perhaps too soon to declare myself fully healed, but i know now that i can do as severe a climb as e'er i've done.
The gold-star days were Mt. Carrigain and the Presidential Traverse. Tweener nephew Aaron and his dad Steve were my companions for Carrigain, a 4700-footer on which we met only a handful of other hikers. The day was memorable because of the weather: 80-something degrees with 80% humidity. Sensible people would have rested for longer than thirty seconds, but for some perverse reason the three of us silently, relentlessly pounded our way up. I was feeling subhuman, my pulse banging my brain. At the top, there's a two-story observation platform. Ahhhhhhhh. Our original plan had been to go down the same way, but i'd looked at the map and decided that one possible title for this article was "I didn't come 400 miles to NOT go down Desolation Trail". It added a few miles to our trek, had the steepest grade we would face, and i was prepared to go it alone. But they joined me, and it was fantastic.
The second monumental day, we were joined by my nephew Isaac. Named the Mumbo hike by he and his big brother, it's a trek above tree line on the ridge of the highest mountains. You can grab the summits or not. I'd never done the Traverse, and we had 15 intense miles behind us when the day was done.
The Presidentials are a great family vacation, affordable to most if you tent. In recent years, my weenie family has rented a house (with, um, hot tub). Not that tenting is a perfect world...the last year we did so, sleep was hardly a given, with Dad snoring, Aaron talking in his sleep, Isaac doing his impression of a burrowing rodent, and unconfirmed rumors of excessive flatulence from some uncle. But we got through the nights, and had glorious days.
For me, a reliable benchmark of a "good" mountain hike is one where i have to use my hands. I also love boulder-strewn trails where one ping pongs forward, from rock to rock. And taking "runners" down a mountain wherever possible. My favorite summits so far are Eisenhower in good weather, and Washington in bad. The most transcendant trail i know is the King Ravine up Adams. It has ice caves at the bottom, followed by the steepest ascent in the Presidentials. Next year i'm looking forward to the Thirteen Waterfalls Trail, and the Great Gully up Adams.
If you're on the cog railroad, expect to be mooned.