Mt Washington

Friday, September 30, 2022, was a fabulous bright sunny day just a few high thin clouds with zero wind.

We woke up to a clear and cold morning.   We showed 36 degrees, but it was probably a couple of degrees colder that that.

According to the forecast this was going to be a sunshiny day and thats the kinda of day we were looking for to go to the Mt Washington’s summit. We’ve been holding off for the leaves start changing good before we head to the top also.

The other day, making plans, first we wanted to ride the cog train to the summit, but it was booked solid for the next few days. Then we discussed riding a gondola up a different mountain, but in looking at the website it kinda read like they expected you to eat while your up there.  We would have consider that EXCEPT they didn’t serve real food, it was all this weird stuff & combinations that didn’t remotely sound eatable so we passed on that idea.

I already knew we wouldn’t be allowed to drive the van up to the summit, because of to much weight coming down.  They are afraid of breaks overheating, so we took a tour van to the top. The driver was knowledgeable about the area and the mountain.

Dang, am I ever glad I didn’t drive, it was a super skinny road with no guard rails. I noticed more than one car driving on the centerline as we met them, the guide didn’t seem to notice them at all.

While we took our jackets and hats with us, we ended up leaving them in the van, they said it was actually a little warmer at the summit than in the valley for some reason today. Mt Washington is kinda known for the worst weather in the US if not the world. Apparently a week ago today the temperature was something like 3 degrees with a 120 MPH wind and about 6 inches of snow & ice.  There was still some ice scattered around in a couple of places.

I think he said the average temperature was 27 degrees, that’s average over an entire year with the average wind speed of 36mph, cold and windy!!! We just lucked into a fantastic day.  I should mention the wind has hit as high as 231 mph and they had a shack chained down.

It’s interesting to note that the privately built toll road to the summit opened in 1864, it’s still a private toll road, built solely for the tourist trade, that now leads to a State Park both located within a National Forest. The same with the cog train, it to is privately held and was built just for the tourist trade.

The tour company and toll road are family owned and has been in the same family since 1906, they have a little museum onsite with artifacts associated with the mountain.

more below

According to the tour guide the main reason we haven’t seen a moose is they are in a drastic decline, according to him the moose calves are having a 90-95% mortality rate. Most of the calves are born within about a week of each other.

He tried to explain it but failed, soI did a quick search, the culprit is called a winter or moose tick, apparently they are becoming a problem throughout New England and Canada. Including some adult moose that have rubbed all their hair off and are now called ghost moose.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/05/18/moose-tick-deaths-climate-change

The End