If Mt Washington is Disney World, then the Tuckerman Ravine Trail is the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, its most popular ride. There are no easy trails up to Mt Washington but Tuckerman Ravine is surely the most difficult and tedious. It’s a slow rock scramble over knife-edge sharp, randomly scattered rocks. What it has is the view that one can get by turning around and looking across the valley towards the mountain layers beyond. The higher one gets the better the view.
The trail can be described as a play in 3 Acts. Act 1 is the never-ending curl around the base over rounded rocks, randomly scattered throughout the trail. This is the part I remembered most about our 3 previous scrambles up this peak.
Act 2 is the hand-over-hand pull up Tuckerman’s Ravine. Steeper than the first section with much larger boulders, it is often just a scramble upwards. The trail is in there somewhere. We could see little bits of color from others ahead of us telling us where the trail was.
Here it is from the side.
Act 3 is the boulder field at the top where the trail is so obscure that cairns mark the way.
We started out fresh and dewey eyed. Look at these two eager souls ready to conquer the mountain.
The views were great. Here’s a lake at the bottom of Tuckerman’s. Note how cloudy the summit is - that’s where Mt. Washington is. But it gets clearer as we climb.
We found some snow that had not melted yet. The rule is to not get under or climb up this since it might collapse. But the waterfall is pretty cool too. It looks as if the intrepid hiker is looking a little more harried. I’m about 2/3 up.
The views just kept getting better and better but the haze hung in there.
We got to the top of the Ravine and kept going.
Right about here an 11-yr old kid passed me singing at the top of his lungs his own tune and words: ‘The Top is Right up There’. ‘You show me’, I said and he did - he bounced up the rock like a billy goat and left this old woman in awe. Maybe I won’t take his bounding route but I found my own route which I can plod up and, though it ain’t pretty, it got me up to the next rock.
Then we neared the top and saw this: all the cars which had brought people up the Mt. Washington Road. Note the guy looking over the side of the rocks saying: ‘What fools would ever climb up this?’ ‘You’re not getting me to do that.’
Lots of people get a ride to the top and hike down. You can tell who they are, they look fresh.
Not only can you drive to the top but you can also take the Cog Railway. I did this many years ago with a woman from Germany who was staying with us for 2 weeks. Kind of like a foreign exchange student program. The angle is interesting and you keep wondering if you’re going to make it.
We were eating our lunch inside the summit house and I had by this time decided that I was not going to hike down. I don’t bound from boulder to boulder too well because my sense of balance is not that great and I would take forever to get down. Right then the 3 ladies at the other end of the table said: ‘Come down with us’ and I quickly said’ ‘yes.’ Gary said that he wanted to hike down.
We rushed over to the tip-top cairn to get our picture taken. We didn’t have time to wait in line since the ladies were leaving shortly so we didn’t get out picture with the sign at the top - like the people in back us are.
And, here’s Gary getting ready to don his pack and head down.
And, he even took a selfie.
And, what did I do while he was hiking down? I decided to hike up to meet him. Don’t nominate me for Mensa. Yep, I decided that I hadn’t had enough of hiking, why not hike up again?
I got about 1 1/2 mile along the trail when I saw him. No surprise on his face - he had expected me to do this. We’ve lived together too long.
We met the rain on the way. Just several showers. Enough to scare us into putting cameras, phones and wallets into the dry bag.
We did stop at the Crystal Cascades though.
Here we are at the bottom, tired, haggard, sweaty, hungry, ready to head back to the RV. Do our legs look like rubber?
I knew I would make it up - the only question was ‘When.’ sometimes I would look up to see the end of the trail but it never seemed as if it got any closer. It always seemed the same distance away. How many passed us today? Lots. Out in the desert where we do most of our hiking, few pass us since we can walk fast and balance is not a problem. But here, in the rocks, I’m slow because I don’t feel comfortable jumping from one rock to the next. This requires a good sense of balance, which I don’t have. I need to plan where to put my next foot and planning takes thought. Others just bound.
We’re going to have to expand our repertoire - no more Mt Washington, we need to hike other mountains in New Hampshire. There are 40 mountains of over 4000’ and we keep concentrating on this one - the one which is 6228.
On the other hand, and this is a clue to how my mind works) I’m thinking that if I can climb 5448’ then I can climb the Grand Canyon which is only 5200’ or thereabouts. Am I crazy or what?
Gary’s t-shirt which says ‘The Mountains are calling and I must come’ is going to be supplanted by my t-shirt which says ‘The Oceans are calling and I must come.’ Much easier. No elevation, no struggle, no little kids bounding in front of me singing ‘The top is right up there.’
Obviously I’m older and, as much as I would to deny this, I can’t do what I used to do without effort. I’ve realized that I’ve got limits and that I am not as fast nor as strong as I used to be and that I’ll never get to hike lots of trails and lots of mountains that I would like to. I wish that Gary and I had discovered our love of hiking while we were living in New Hampshire and had abundant opportunities to fulfill our love. The chances were there, the mountains were there but we didn’t hear them call us until we retired and began to climb mountains for fun. We hiked up Mt Washington three times but never explored hiking any other mountains. We were too busy living our lives to look around to see what we liked to do and to then to do it.
Do I regret lost opportunities? I guess I wish we had followed them more. But it is as it is and I can’t change that. All I can do now is to hike where we can and to enjoy all the little things that come with putting ones foot on trails up mountains: the flowers that bloom along the trails, the view from the top, the little frog that hops in front of us, breezes that wander through the trees, the clouds that scuttle across the sky and the and the glory of still being alive and being able to hike.
“Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can't fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.”
Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
5448’ (OMG) 5.5 mi
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