Pinkham Notch - Nobo 1865

This post is from August 27, 2015. GPS data from today's hike can be found at:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/880735095 

Mount Washington did its thing today. When I boarded the stagecoach van at 9 AM for the ride to the summit it was a beautiful summer day down in Pinkham  notch. When I exited the van over 4000 feet higher up at the summit I had to run to the visitor center and don my tights and Gore-Tex jacket, just to venture out and start my hike. Here are a couple of shots showing what conditions were like about 10 minutes after starting, a few hundred vertical feet down from the summit (beautiful August day, eh?):

Things got worse from there as it rained pretty hard on me in the elevation zone between 5000 and 6000 feet which I was at for a few hours. Then finally we descended from the clouds and it began to dry out and warm up.  This is a view as I descended on the Parapet Trail and broke out of the clouds:

I think the year was 1995 Jenny was about 12 and Peter was about 10 and we did our first backpacking trip together right after I did the Wild man Biathlon the morning of the first day of the 3 day trip. We hiked up the Rocky branch Trail and camps near the Mount Isolation trail.

The next day we hiked over at the summit of Mount Washington and ascended into the great gulf wilderness. Much of the hike on the final day was on the great gulf Trail. I can remember when we reached the intersection of the great gulf Trail and the AT.  I. think I said to my children "kids this is the Appalachian Trail this is a big thing it's a trail that goes all the way from Georgia to Maine." This is a photo of me at that very intersection today.  Sweet memory for me.

This is the Pinkham Notch Visitors Center, end of today and the start of tomorrow: