Caution. So begins the description of Huntington Ravine trail in the
AMC’s Guide to the White Mountains. I know this because I read it the night before I and a few other intrepid (read: naïve) hikers embarked on what’s known as the most difficult hike in the
White Mountains. I went to bed that night with the image of a sheer, steep, foreboding, blood-thirsty granite headwall looming in front of me and certain of one thing only: my imminent demise the next day. Surely, I would either be crushed by an avalanche of falling rocks or swallowed up by a bottomless crevasse never to be seen again (as my mother is always warning me). I awoke hours before the alarm went off, drenched in a cold sweat, wondering how I could get out of this gracefully without appearing as though I was scared out of my mind. But it was too late. Gerry, known as “Danger Boy” to his friends (and with good reason), was up early and ready to roll. He assured me and our friend Joanne in his irrepressibly optimistic manner that it wasn’t all that hard. The guidebook, he reasoned, was trying to scare people off so they wouldn’t be tempted to bring their kids and dogs and other household items up that trail. All I can say is god help them if they did.
After a hearty breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs and train fries, Joanne, Gerry and I met up with the rest of the gang at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center. Besides us, there were three software engineers from Bose – Masood, Kyle from Cleveland, and John – and John’s girlfriend Deb, who is also a trained AMC leader and has more common sense than the rest of us put together. Thank god. I mean someone had to make sure we didn’t dally at the top of the mountain and got back before sunset.
Masood, me, Joanne, Deb (in background), John, and Kyle with big stick:
They spent the night at the AMC’s Joe Dodge Lodge, where I’m fairly certain they don’t serve train fries for breakfast. Even so, everyone looked well rested and ready for a big day on the mountain. Kyle from Cleveland even brought a big walking stick with him. I was impressed. Maybe he could use it to deflect the falling rocks or fish me out of the crevasse? Kyle eventually confessed somewhere along the hard scramble up Huntington that he’d never actually hiked before. This was a revelation to me. I had no idea. At this point, big walking stick aside, I was in complete awe of Kyle who scrambled up the sheer rock face (also known as The Fan) without even the slightest sign that perhaps, maybe, he was in over his head.
Deb, hiking up The Fan:
Hiking up Huntington Ravine is as technical as it gets for any hiker, let alone a newbie. It’s like going from a bunny slope to a double black diamond in one day. Slightly unnerving, and a bit crazy, to say the least.
Was Huntington Ravine everything I dreamed (literally) it would be? Yes and no. It was looming and craggy and ominous-looking for sure...
...with a big boulder field at the bottom and lots of vertical, hand over hand climbing on the way up, but I was expecting a 5.12 route without the benefit of a harness and ropes. It wasn’t that. We did see real rock climbers to the left of the trail on what’s known as The Pinnacle. For most of us, though, the hardest part was the aforementioned Fan, which was about a hundred feet of sheer rock face, but there were enough hand and foot holds to securely make our way up, and we all felt hugely relieved when we did. The magnificent views of the ravine below and mountains in the distance made it worth all the effort.
A view of Wildcat ("a man's mountain"):
Once we reached the top (high-fives all around) we could either take the Alpine Garden trail which circumvents the summit or take Nelson Crag all the way to the top. Since the winds were a mere class 1 hurricane force (um, that’s about 70 MPH), we opted to go all the way to the top. Other than The Fan, this was the most difficult part of the hike. The wind was so strong we struggled to stay on two feet. I literally crawled my way to the summit. I was sure that everyone who saw me from the safety of their cars on the auto road was thankful they weren’t me, that crazy lady in the light blue fleece being blown around mercilessly like a plastic grocery bag in a Shaw’s parking lot. I actually contemplated hitching a ride up the last hundred yards or so to the top, but that would have been cheating (and practical), so I didn’t.
We made it, but where's Masood?
Here he is:
Once we all got to the top, we ate our carbo-loaded lunch in the building that houses a museum, a gift shop (where else would you buy your commemorative t-shirt and shot glass?), a cafeteria, the famed weather station, and a few other amenities I was glad to see (like flushing toilets and tp!). There’s also a plaque that lists all of the people who’ve died on Mount Washington for one reason or another. Quite a few of the deaths could have been avoided, I guess, if the people who met their fates on the peak had decided to stay home or go to the mall rather than attempt to climb to the summit in the middle of January. C’est la vie (or “mort”), as the French would say. By the way, there were quite a few French-speaking visitors on the summit that day. But I digress.
After snapping a few souvenir (French, again) photos of us on the summit cone and a quick visit to the “Tip Top House” (a replica of a stone hotel that operated atop Mt. Washington in the mid-1800s), we made our way back down via Tuckerman Ravine trail on the other side – a much easier, but no less spectacular, hike down than Huntington.
Coming down Tuckerman:
We took a short break at the shelter at the foot of the ravine (where you can also buy a t-shirt) and then headed out for our final, gradual descent to Pinkham Notch. Near the end, there’s a short stairway that leads to an overlook of a waterfall. If my toes weren’t painfully jammed into the front of my boots and my knees ready to buckle, I probably would’ve taken the little detour to see it. But I was in serious pain, so I limped on to the finish. We finally reached the parking lot at 5:51 PM (according to Gerry’s watch), so a 9-hour hike from beginning to end, including breaks. Not too bad. Oh, and we all survived! Yippee! I’m not sure how many of us are eager to do it again next week, but I’m sure that we’ll find new, if not so challenging, trails to conquer in the future.
Until then, happy hiking!
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