Why Mount Washington Kills

[Powgirl]

I have a policy of never hiking to the top of anything people can drive to. Probably the least satisfying touristy thing I've ever done is take the train to the top of Pikes Peak, which is just tourist hell, and I think I would have killed myself if I'd hiked up and found that scene.

My SO is a ranger on Pikes Peak....it's a big mountain...he does a couple of rescues a week and the hikers are far, far from the road...sometimes in the dark.

In fact, he is late tonight trying to find a female hiker...

 

[alicie]

I find it weird you can drive to the top of a mountain. Here one has a funicular but if you take the funicular up you aren't allowed outside just to the cafe and visitors centre, unless you take a guided tour. If you walk up you could take the funicular down. It's quite a good idea, you can see the views but you're not putting too many people onto the environment, and anyhow if you took the funicular up then walked to the summit it wouldn't count as a Munro, so is pretty pointless, as there is not enough ascent. For skiing you are allowed out but I think you have to have a ski pass, not a funicular ticket.

 

[surfsnowgirl]

@surfsnowgirl - I will be with you. We'll have their drinks ready.

At least I wouldn't get part way and have to bail. One look at that ladder at the beginning and I'd be out!

We will be great beverage servers .... Yeah I looked at that ladder photo and went uh uh................

 

[SallyCat]

This is a great book about Mt. Washington deaths and rescues. It's also a fascinating history of 19th and early 20th century hiking and mountaineering and the "ramblers" who built the trail and hut systems in the Whites. I think my favorite story is the man who was given a down jacket and thought he was dying from a terrible fever; he literally had never been warm on a mountain in winter before and couldn't figure out what was happening!

https://amcstore.outdoors.org/not-without-peril

 

[Jenny]

This is a great book about Mt. Washington deaths and rescues. It's also a fascinating history of 19th and early 20th century hiking and mountaineering and the "ramblers" who built the trail and hut systems in the Whites. I think my favorite story is the man who was given a down jacket and thought he was dying from a terrible fever; he literally had never been warm on a mountain in winter before and couldn't figure out what was happening!

https://amcstore.outdoors.org/not-without-peril

Ooh, sounds interesting.

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Mount Washington Auto Road has been there a long, long time, opening August 8, 1861. Interesting history on dvd for the initial 1/2 of the uphill drive. (Which, yes, I did first summer living here, as I had my 84 year old mother then.)

@vanhoskier - that year, the Tuckerman Ravine trail was closed in sections for repairs due to rock slides. So you may have been on it inititally, but as the climb got steeper, you weren't. That was a tougher climb than the traditional trail.

I have pictures from a friend who hiked the Huntington Ravine Trail and was designated among a group to go scare off a moose that was blockading the trail.

The place, no matter how ascended/descended or which season, is something of a rite of regional passage. On a clear day, the vistas go over 100 miles. The wind is usually ferocious. It's one of those places like Niagra Falls, which may seem cliche - until you get to it. Elevation from Pinkham Notch (notch=pass, in New England terms) is 4000 ft.

I've had the snowcat trip up to the summit in winter on my bucket list for 15 years! Gotta do it.

 

[vanhoskier]

I find it weird you can drive to the top of a mountain. Here one has a funicular but if you take the funicular up you aren't allowed outside just to the cafe and visitors centre, unless you take a guided tour. .....

Driving = life in America. (NOT always a good thing)!!!!

What is a funicular? (I gotta get to Scotland)!

 

[vanhoskier]

@vanhoskier - that year, the Tuckerman Ravine trail was closed in sections for repairs due to rock slides. So you may have been on it inititally, but as the climb got steeper, you weren't. That was a tougher climb than the traditional trail.

I forgot about that!!! That climb was quite the adventure!

 

[altagirl]

Driving = life in America. (NOT always a good thing)!!!!

What is a funicular? (I gotta get to Scotland)!

There is a funicular to get to the St. Regis hotel at Deer Valley.

https://www.ski.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/deer-valley-funicular.jpg

 

[Christy]

They are all over Switzerland. It's like a cable car in terms of how it runs. I think Europe may have the US beat when it comes to using some kind of conveyance to get people to the top of a mountain (even if it's not usually a car) though when you count all those old roads in the US to fire lookout sites, etc, maybe not.

 

[marzNC]

There used to be a bunch of them around Pittsburgh. The Duquesne Incline was built in 1877 and was saved in the 1960s. It is still running. So is the Monongahela Incline, which is even older, built in 1870. The idea of building inclines came from German immigrants who were familiar with the ones in Europe.

 

[alicie]

Driving = life in America. (NOT always a good thing)!!!!

What is a funicular? (I gotta get to Scotland)!

It's like a train thing for going up and down hills and is on a cable and track.

This is the Cairngorm one, there is two of them.

 

[pinto]

They are all over Switzerland. It's like a cable car in terms of how it runs. I think Europe may have the US beat when it comes to using some kind of conveyance to get people to the top of a mountain (even if it's not usually a car) though when you count all those old roads in the US to fire lookout sites, etc, maybe not.

I think for sure it does. Don't we get most of our stuff from them, anyway? (lifts, trams, etc)

One of my favorite memories from skiing at Zermatt was the number and variety of transportation modes on the mountain. In addition to a normal chairlift, we rode a regular train, a funicular, a cog train, a tram, a gondola, a rope tow, a poma, and a t-bar. Must have been a magic carpet in there somewhere, too...

 

[Kimmyt]

Relevant link

 

[santacruz skier]

I think for sure it does. Don't we get most of our stuff from them, anyway? (lifts, trams, etc)

One of my favorite memories from skiing at Zermatt was the number and variety of transportation modes on the mountain. In addition to a normal chairlift, we rode a regular train, a funicular, a cog train, a tram, a gondola, a rope tow, a poma, and a t-bar. Must have been a magic carpet in there somewhere, too...

Yeah Zermatt had some cog like thing that went through the mountain. Also was in Wengen two years ago and they have a weird train that goes to the "top of the world" Jungfrau....

 

[vanhoskier]

It's like a train thing for going up and down hills and is on a cable and track.

This is the Cairngorm one, there is two of them.
View attachment 5589

Does Mt Pilatus in Switzerland have a funicular? Or is that just a cog railroad? That's the closest thing I've been on to what you're talking about...

 

[snow addict]

Mt. Pilatus has a cog railway and also an aerial cable car. Zermatt funicular is completely underground, inside the mountain.

 

[Soujan]

These are some of my pictures from my attempt up Mount Washington in February 2015. You can see Wildcat and Tuckerman's in the background. We went with a group and some of them were inexperienced and one person said it was her first time hiking! We didn't make it up and turned around at Lion's Head. Though the weather was clear, it was brutally cold. It was already in the negative degrees at the base. I'll be making another attempt this February but will opt to hire a private guide. One week after we went, an experienced female mountaineer died attempting to climb this by herself.

 

[santacruz skier]

Thanks for the post. What an eye opener.

 

[TeleChica]

That was a brutally cold winter--I'm not surprised you got turned around. We were on winter vacation around that time in NH, and our diesel fuel froze it was so cold. The woman who died tried to do a Presi traverse solo during that same terrible cold stretch (-80 wind chill). She actually started at the other end of the range on Mt Adams. She was prepared for a winter backpack, but you can't prepare for something like that. She had done some other winter hiking on bigger peaks, and completely underestimated MW. Incredibly tragic story. I remember driving through the Presis on our way to Maine the day after she had perished (not knowing about her yet), and thinking at the time that anyone hiking that day was nuts--the winds just in the valleys were insane.

I've hiked all over NE, and love Mt Wash. If you want a bit more solitude, go later in the season (Sept) and camp in the Great Gulf. There are some incredible hikes to all the different Presidentials out of there that don't see quite as many people.

I've been dealing with a hip issue for 2 years that has me unable to hike. I really, really miss it.