As you all know, the weather last weekend was AMAZING and it wasn’t any different on Mt. Washington. Under blue bird skies Saturday and Sunday, Jamie and Brett were able to summit with all ten clients, they batted 1.000!

Saturday, the forecast predicted clear and sunny but cold. As it turned out, we stood a top New England, at the summit of Mt. Washington, around 1:30pm in temperatures in the single digits and 10 mph gusts of wind — it was fantastic! Our goal was summit or bust. We were attempting to redeem a failed summit bid [due to weather] earlier in the season. We set out of Pinkham Notch Visitor Center around 7:30am, 1/2 hour ahead of schedule, and set a tremendous pace all day. We cleared tree line around 11am, took a break atop Lions Head around 12pm and summited at 1:30! As we left the summit we had the honor of photographing a fellow climber spread the ashes of his friend on the summit of Mt. Washington; a very memorable moment. Instead of descending via Lions Head trail, we decided to drop in to Tuckerman’s Ravine via Right Gully. The avalanche forecast was lowered from considerable to low, we crossed paths with many skiers who ascended the route and decided that it was a nice, safe change of scenery. We stopped half way down the gully to watch a group of skiers descend the headwall. It looked like an awesome ride, except they forgot their dog at the top, too afraid to follow. We spent the next 45 minutes coaxing the dog away from the headwall and down right gully, as the dog’s owner was forced to climb the headwall after him. Once, he reached the dog, we proceeded down the gully and back to the visitors center. All in all, a great day on the hill!

The drive to the mountain Sunday was dark, because of day light savings time! The lost hour of sleep demanded a large coffee! The weather was more of the same. The forecast predicted winds of 45-60 mph with higher gusts. We broke tree line around 11:30am with eight climbers and there wasn’t a breath of wind. Jamie and Brett were pumped to guide everyone to a successful summit — two days in a row! At the summit, the winds picked up and gusts strong enough knock you off balance persisted. Even so, the wind chill was still above zero which allowed us to explore the summit and capture the 360 degree views from the top. It was magnificent. We descended via Lions Head Trail and returned to the visitors center with plenty of day light.

It was a very successful weekend on the mountain for NEM, the guides and ALL of the clients!
Looking forward to a climb on Friday and two-day skills seminar this weekend.

Don’t forget to check out the Special Climb: Summit at Sunrise – May 26th and our new course: Intro to Rock Climbing!

Get out and Climb!

Ice Climbing the "Hillary Step"

Summit under blue bird skies

Summit Cone: So Close!

Today was unseasonably warm so me and Jamie got out to Crow Hill in Leominster State Forest to do some rock climbing. EVerything was soaked as suspected, but we did find a couple dry climbs. Rock climbing in March!

Jamie climbing... sorry for the crummy photo quality. It was getting dark.

If you are a frequent follower of our blog, you know by now that last weekend didn’t turn out exactly how we would have liked. The weather made for terrible summit conditions, hence no one stepped foot on Mt Washington’s summit. This weekend started out with a little more of the same. We got a late start on Saturday March 3rd with a great bunch of climbers. The morning consisted of nice drizzly rain which allowed for no good views beyond the trees and snowy highway that is the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. The rain tested our discipline as we had to keep our goretex layer on regardless of how much we were sweating while hiking into the Lions Head Route in above freezing temperatures. I would much prefer zero degrees and snowing than 35 degrees and raining. At the first break we had a climber’s knee pop out of socket, which she calmly popped back in after explaining that it happens quite a bit. Unfortunately her day was over at that point and Jamie descended with her. After dropping her off at the visitors center he then sprinted back up the mountain to catch the rest of us. As we broke treeline, the rain had stopped (woohoo!) and the clouds had lifted to a higher elevation so that we could now see Pinkham Notch and Wildcat Ski Area. The ceiling of clouds left a few neat looking stragglers which I was sure to capture in the photos below. Two more climbers decided that they had reached their limits and Jamie again descended with them. I pushed on with a group of 5. We reached Lions Head at 2:30PM, much too late to attempt the summit. The winds were around 55mph at Lions Head and we saw many parties turning around in the Alpine Garden. We also heard reports of near whiteout conditions near the summit as the crust was starting to be ripped up by the wind and thrown into the air. Although the next day we also heard that it wasn’t bad at all passed the Alpine Garden.. Either way, 2:30PM is no time to be going for the summit. We took some photos and video and headed down the mountain to big burgers at the Muddy Moose in North Conway. The summit of Mt Washington remains elusive in the past two weeks.

The forecast for Sunday March 4th promised to be a summit day. Low winds (40mph) and mostly clear skies. We climbed quickly up the Tux trail, feeling extra motivated by the good weather. We made good time up to the Lions Head Route. For some reason, the fitting of crampons etc took awhile today which put us behind schedule slightly. 10 minutes up the trail, we had crampon issues again. We decided to climb the left side of the “Hillary Step” just using the fixed handrail to aid our ascent. No traffic jam today! We ascended the steep sections quickly and continued up to treeline. Jamie was ahead with 6 climbers and I had stayed behind with two climbers. When I arrived at treeline, it was apparent that we were moving too slow to summit, so Jamie took the 4 climbers who felt strong enough to pick up the pace and headed off for the summit. I took a long break at treeline with the other 4 and then we leisurely made our way up to Lions Head where we were delighted to find a 10-20 mph breeze. We hung out on Lions Head for about 40 minutes and watched the others ascend the summit cone to Split Rock. On our way down, we took off the crampons and glissaded down parts of the Lions Head Trail, which was a blast but short lived. Jamie’s summit group made the summit at 2:50PM after battling through some leg cramps. They reported a 10-20mph breeze on top, which is calm even by summer standards! Mt Washington can be climbed after all!

Next weekend’s forecast is calling for sunny skies… here’s to hoping for more summitteers!

Interesting patterns in the trees along the Huntington Ravine Fire Road.

Climbing out of the trees

Really neat clouds in the notch

The March 3rd crew on Lions Head

Despite the winds, the day ended fairly nice

March 4th Summit Team