With the summits of Mt's Adams and Jefferson behind us this summer, of course we had to go for the big guy. So, on an overcast morning after spending the night at the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center's Joe Dodge Lodge we began the trek up to the summit of Mt Washington via the Tuckerman Ravine trail. Despite the lack of views due to the cloud cover, the hiking temps were ideal and the bugs were few. There was still some snow in the Ravine and a few folks to ski it (not us). The final summit push began with the crossing of the anti-climactic auto-road, followed by the perplexing two sets of man-made wooden stairs and then up the last few rocks to the proclaimed "summit". Sorry young kids with ice cream cones in hand for pushing you out of the way so we could celebrate our reaching the summit with a picture... you were taking too damn long and your parents were yelling for you to get back in the car anyway! (ok, this actually happened on another hike some years ago) And thank you old German couple for taking our picture even though I have no idea what you were trying to tell me. I'll assume it was something about how much you like my new Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS with 8 megapixels... it is ubercool! Unfortunately, the visibility was not good enough to take any worth while pictures of the view... oh, well... next time! After a cup of hot chocolate and a yummie PB&J, we headed back down to Pinkham Notch via the Lion Head trail. Our first time on this trail and I have to say that it was kind of fun. Glad we decided to take it. I dedicate this one day summit loop to my Dad who first took me on it when I was about 9 years old (although that one was up and down TUX)... he would have been proud of me for not having another I-don't-want-to-go-any-further hissy fit at the base of the Mt Washington cone (.6 miles to go!). And to TB - you are a great hiking companion!
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