Huntington - bring it on baby!!

Tuckerman Tr
Huntington Ravine Tr
Bald Crag Tr
Tuckerman Tr
Alpine Garden Tr
Nelson Crag Tr
Old Jackson Road Tr

It was another Meetup hike with Random group of hikers. We met at the Pinkham Notch Center and started a little after 8:30. Weather was doing us a favor and let sun up for all day. We started off pretty quickly, moving with fast pace, cutoff to Huntington Tr showed up unexpectedly. First part of the trail delivered some pretty views of the river, couple of crossings weren't to bad. After that it was just a walk to the final section which i started to dread a little.

I wasnt exactly sure what to expect so when i saw "the wall" i got a little scared. Half way there the group split, with 3 of us going of much faster pace. Thats how it lasted till almost the end of the hike. The rest of the group as i later turned out decided not to summit Washington and head back home by Lion Head Tr.
The approach to the main section of Huntington was fairly easy with few scrambles and tight spaces. The main part was, what was making me nervous. It looked so intimidating from the distance. When we finally approached it i wasnt as scared any more. We werent going to go through the parts that looked impossible, those are for those with experience in rock climbing, especially in the winter when the section is filled with ice, the "fold" in the rocks is a place where people test their abilities. We took off slightly to the right and climbed steadily through several ledges and slab of rocks.

There were couple little sections with wet rock that were easily avoidable. I had to stop and rethink my steps two times, the rest of it was not that difficult at all and i was very relieved. Did i mention that the views were amazing? All the way to the top you could admire the scenery. Whole Huntington Ravine is something you dont see on a regular basis. I have not been in this section of mt Washington before so it was very special for me. That was also the last time we saw the rest of our group.

At the very finish of the climb there is a section called chimney where you have to pull yourself more up with your hand without perfect footing, but even that wasnt that hard as is it turned out.
We rested at the big cairn for a minute but i was more interested in catching some more views, in that section you can take a little cutoff to the mount washington road, and on that day there was road race happening on top of the biker week!!! I saw some runners going down after the race and some motorcycles getting their way up to the summit. It was loud and busy.

I took a look on some of the north presidentials and short after we started our final push through the Bald Crag the summit. The wind picked up and we layered up. As we later found out some of the wind gusts were up to 49 mph!! Ina few places i had to try hard to keep my balance and not being pushed off the rocks.

When we finally got up to the summit we saw many people. Race was already over but there were still tens of tens of visitors. It was much cooler at the top but still sunny. I got to try some of the food items that were served in the visitor center. I was getting cold and decided it was perfect timing for a bowl of chilly!! And what more it was a bawl made out of bread!!

It was delicious and helped me keep warm fora little bit more. We hung around the summit for about an hour thinking that maybe the rest of the group would join us, but after a while we figured that it was time to head back. We took couple of shots at the summit sign and headed down. There were a lot of people on the rocks and it was hard to go by. I had to go around of several groups of people to avoid getting stuck. From now on it was more of a rock hopping than regular walk. To keep warm we had to move fast. But also that gives you different feel of completion when you know you had to put some effort in your moves. I kept focused and only slipped couple times, for the most of it it looked like i knew what i was doing. We lost one of the members on out way to the Alpine Garden Tr, he decided to go down Lions Head Tr instead, not being able to keep up with our fast mountain goat pace.
Alpine Garden Tr was a little disappointing, there were almost no flora in blooming left. I had hard time regulating the body heat.

It was still very windy also i was warm from jumping and running. We got to the Huntington Ravine tr in no time to see if anybody there saw our group. But whoever we met on our way did not see them. We talked to the guy that was resting on top of the wall for a while, he treated us with some fresh strawberries. Oh they tasted deliciously!! We moved on a little while after, i was getting chilly. From then on we only had to get to the Nelson Crag summit to be finally able to go down.
Nelson Crag trail is a continuation mostly of rock hopping. Going down you could see auto road and we even got to be photographed by some of the crazy folks in the car as a "real hikers".
Old Jackson road takes you to the tree line and gives a impression of more of a private feel, trail is very narrow and surrounded by tall trees. With still a lot of running up and rock hopping it didnt take us long to get to the flat spots. And from there it was an easy walk to the beginning of our hike.
It was pretty exciting hike.

It allowed me to be able to move fast and keep my reflexes in check. Also it was my first time going up mt Washington not in Winter! I was able to see everything from a different point of view, and event though i loved most of the surroundings i still prefer to see the summit cone covered in snow and shared privately with  hikers instead of masses of families with kids, motorcyclists and random people who drove up in their cars.