Last week the summit of Mt Washington had 10″ of fresh snow. The past 10 days have been warmer than normal and the snow has since melted. Minimal snow this early in December is not that abnormal though. We are back in the mountains tomorrow and it’s is supposed to be a balmy 0-10 degrees on the summit with the winds only at 25mph or so. It’s going to be a great day up there, but I am really looking forward to the snow.. Whenever it comes. Stay posted for some updated route condition pictures and a description of our latest climb.
Category Archives: mtnEDUCATION
Perfect Weather
Brett and I climbed Mt. Washington for the fun of it on Sunday November 13th. Luckily for us, it turned out to be the pick of the week. We climbed into clear skies and amazing views of the surrounding peaks. From the summit we could see the entire presidential range and beyond, which is quite rare for the winter months. The ski trail from Pinkham Notch to the Lions Head Trail is still mostly rock, with some spotty ice. Lions Head was more of the same. The ice made for some tricky footing in some sections. We set a leisurely pace from the start which put us on Lion’s Head proper in about 2 hrs and 15 minutes. Here we were greeted by 40-55 mph winds. The winds were short lived and we found hardly any wind as we traversed across the rim of Tuckerman’s to the the junction of Lions head and Tuckerman Ravine trail, which is typical. We climbed the final summit pyramid in 20-30mph winds. We reached the summit in 3hrs 45minutes from Pinkham Notch. On the summit we got to view the sun through a special telescope, part of a program the Park Service was running. It was a balmy 20 degrees or so on the top with a windchill around 5 degrees. We spent 45 minutes on top taking in the fantastic views and a can of Pringles. It took us 3 hours to descend to the car as the ice covered rocks made for tedious footing. What a great day on the mountain!
Video of the winds on top of Lions HeadOctober Snow Fall
There was a reported 19.7″ of snowfall in the month of October, 10″ of it came on the October 30th snow storm. If we keep up the current weather pattern, we should be using crampons and snowshoes before we know it.