To continue with our little 100,000 feet elevation goal for this winter, Nate and I decided to hike up north and this time we brought a friend, the infamous Mr. Nevins. If you have not taken the time to check out his work, you should. He's pretty much the bomb diggity, and I'm not just blowing smoke up his bum so he can get us tickets... I really mean that! :) And after spending 6 hours with the guy, he's a pretty cool dude too.
Since last weekend, we hiked up the east side of Mount Washington, we decided to hike the west side this time. We hiked along the Cog Railway which was pretty sweet. That is our normal skin path in the winter and I've decided hiking is WAY harder than skinning up anything. We hiked along the Cog Railway and when we got to Jacob's ladder, we skirted around the Railway and decided that we were going to hike over to Mount Clay instead of Mount Washington. By this time, the winds started picking up too and it sort of felt like the winds were pushing us up the mountain. It sure made it seem easier.
Here are the dogs on the north side of the Cog Railway facing Mount Clay and Mount Jefferson. Please notice the amount of railroad debris that the dogs are running in. Sort of made me a little sad at how much wood was just left by the railway. I guess it's biodegradable so it will break down with time.
Here are Nate and Brian scoping out the bowl for the winter. I have a feeling that I might need some Depends to start the winter. The boys have planned out some serious treks for once the snow hits and it might be a little scary for the newbie. But you can see how much snow is up there. It's not quite deep enough to ski on, but it's getting close!!!
More snow crystals from the insane winds up there...
Nate and Brian still scoping out ways to get down and get back to the car from the bowl... or something along those lines... They did a lot of talking and planning... And who needs a professional photographer when you have a girl with her Iphone...
The dogs were digging the snow fields at the top. I'm not sure they were digging the winds, but they were chasing their shadows and running all around in the snow. You can see Mount Clay, Jefferson and Adams in the background.
Nate was having fun with the Hipstamic App. I swear this could be Sir Edmund Hillary looking up towards Everest... But it's just Brian Nevins looking towards Mount Washington. Nice work, photographer Nate! (the actual photographer on this trip snapped zero photos because he forgot his memory card.)
This was after we summited Mount Clay and were heading back. The winds were a beastly 40+ mph (and actually could have been pushing 50 or 60 at that point, but I can't figure out the time axis on the MWOBS site). As we were walking along the top, I was walking on the inside of Nate and there were a few times that I felt like I was getting stabbed with ice crystals in the face. It was pretty intense. And yes, my pants were frozen at the bottom but I wasn't cold.
Trail marking at the top. We were on the Appalachian Trail there for a few feet... :)
Nate took a video at the top to see if he could some how video the winds. I do stumble at the beginning of the video because I was knocked over by the wind. It happened a lot.
We considered summiting Washington too but it was looking a bit shady so I chickened out although there were no arguments from the boys. We totally had enough time to summit both, maybe next time...
As of the last post, we had 95,744 feet to go. Nate brought the Garmin with us this time, but did not turn it on to track the climb so I can only use what I can find online. We had a little conversation about this last night and he was like, 'if we finish the year and we are 200 feet away then we can say we did it because we climbed up more after we reached Clay'. I told him that wasn't going to fly to which he then said that he would have to read the Garmin instruction book... :) We started at 2,700 feet at the base of the Cog Railway and the summit of Mount Clay is at 5,533 feet. Thus we climbed 2,833 feet yesterday and we have 92,911 feet to go.
And a random little fact, Clay is not considered a 4,000 footer because it is too close to the col of Mount Washington. It is considered a secondary summit.
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