I went to the White Mountains on Saturday to ride the cog railroad up to the top of Mount Washington. It was the last weekend that it would be going all the way to the top so I decided to "seize the day" and go out there. The directions that I printed were to the Mount Washington motor road rather than the Mount Washington Cog Railway and unfortunately they are on opposite sides of the mountain. So I missed my reserved trip up the mountain and got rescheduled on the second trip of the day. By the time my train left there were sustained winds over 70 mph on top of the mountain so we only went part way up.
A covered bridge that I encountered along the way.
A view of the river from inside the bridge
This is the engine at the bottom of the hill.
Here is the detail of the cog rail. The incline is so steep that the engine has a cog wheel that clicks into these grooves all the way up. Otherwise it could not hold on.
This is pretty representative of what we were able to see at the point where we stopped. Even though we could not see anything up there we certainly got the sense that we were in the place with the "worst weather on earth". The wind was probably blowing at 50-60 mph where we were and you could tell that to the crew it was nothing all that unusual.
I took this as I was leaving the White Mountain area. It was raining so hard by this point that I am amazed that I could distinguish any mountains at all. I think that the tall Shadow might be Mount Washington but I am not sure.
6 comments:
Nice. You will have to make the trip back when you can get to the top you know it's a highpoint.
Kris,
You're doing things I've always wanted to do. One thing I do want to do; is to go to all the states in this great country. Right now I've missed NH, VT, and MI. And with our Thanksgiving trip I'm going to get all but Vermont taken care of. Mount Washington is well known for traping climbers in the kind of weather you encountered. Your brother Mike was really concerned about you. Glad you returned home safely,
Dad
I guess you are home safe and sound now.....I will go to bed now.
It looked a lot like that when I climbed it about 10 years ago. They were planning opening the road and rail road the week after I was there. I could not see much from the top, mostly just my hand in front of my face. The wind died down when I was on top, the top wind speed was over 60mph the day I was there, but it was under 30 while I was up there.
Sorry you didn't maker it to the top--I guess you'll just have to come back another year and try it again. :) It looks like it was an interesting experience anyway.
As usual - great pictures. i liked the one of the cold mountain and the one of the cogs in the rail the best ... thank you for sharing your journeys with us. soon you'll have enough for a book!
Too bad you didn't make it to the top but it looks like an interesting journey none the less. Glad you are safe and sound back on the ground.
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