Tom Grundy's Mount Washington Page

Sam was passing through the NE and wanted to do something and I was in Needham, so we planned to climb Mt Washington. Normally this would be no big deal, but in the winter Mt Washington can have some pretty horrendous weather. The day we first considered the idea I checked and the peak wind that day was over 110 mph and it was cold too. Certainly nothing to treat too casually. As the day (Dec 23th) approached we kept a good eye on the weather - made easier by the weather station on the summit. It looked like things would be cold and windy as per usual, but not too cold (above 0 F) and not too windy (max gusts to 60mph or so). Fortunately between the two of us we had enough winter mountaineering gear (I had 2 pairs of crampons and 2 ice axes, Sam had 2 pairs of goggles). We drove up the night before and went to sleep late in the back of my truck. It snowed a few inches that night so when we got up early to start there was fresh snow over everything. This made the trail a little harder to find at 6:40 in the dark, and it was also hard to tell when there was slick ice under the fresh snow. It wasn't long before we put on crampons. We went up and up the Lion's Head trail for a long time eventually reaching the summit plateau. Luckily we were quite sheltered from the wind before this, and we didn't really get the full brunt of it 'til we were nearly at the summit. There I thought the visibility was absolutely horrible until Sam walked over and scraped the ice off my goggles. The rime ice was forming everywhere including my goggles and Sam's dreadlocks. If we were going to spend any more time up there we would have had to put on more clothes, but instead we just turned around and headed back down with the wind at our backs. We got enough harsh weather at the summit to appreciate how bad it could get but not so much that we were in any risk of frostbite or hypothermia. You really would not last long up there without proper clothing and gear though. The cairns on the summit plateau were massive, but I could still see getting lost in a full on icy whitout. All in all a successful mission and another state highpoint for me. It took us 5 hours to get up and about 3 to get down. Most of these pics were taken by Sam - or at least with his camera since it has better weather sealing than mine at the time.

Sam on the way up Mt Washington

I pass a cairn covered in rime ice on Mt Washington

a slot through rocks covered in rime ice on Mt Washington

the rime ice was really cool

Sam and Tom on the summit of Mt Washington, 6288 ft

Sam icing up on the summit of Mt Washington

I got coated in ice too

blog post about this 2011 winter ascent of Mount Washington

Return to the Index Page