Mount Washington
New Hampshire
September 1986 / August 2013
On the way to our summit hike of the Granite State, we stop at the Mount Washington Observatory Museum in North Conway, New Hampshire. They tell us that this is the largest museum in the world devoted exclusively to the weather.
Think about that. Weather is pretty big. So wouldn’t it follow that the museum would be big too?
Let’s say that the wind blows on Mount Washington. We watch films of just how windy it gets up there on top. This New England hill tops out as the highest peak in the northeastern United States and because of that and other geological conditions, it is generally the windiest spot in the country. At one time the peak of Mount Washington was verified the windiest spot in the world, measuring 231 miles per hour.
There is a fun little room at the Museum. You step inside the room, close the door and press the button labeled START. The sound of the wind begins, and it continues to increase, and continues to increase until you think you are on a special effects set at a disaster movie. Now you experience what it was like to be inside the weather station on top of Mt W when they recorded that record-breaking breeze. The room shakes, things clatter against the walls, the wind howls. You see a cat fly by outside the window. It is, to say the least, bone-chillingly frightening.
Mount Washington has a Century Club. All you have to do is walk across the observation deck of the main weather observatory building, one side to the other, while the wind blows at 100 miles per hour. One more condition: you have to not get blown away. You could try this almost every day here.
We are at 5050 feet of altitude on the southern shoulder of Mount Washington, which means we have climbed some 2500 feet so far today. Perfectly placed is the Lakes of the Clouds hut, the highest and most visited of the eight Appalachian Mountain Club huts. We enter the building to take a well-earned break from our hike. We lower our jacket hoods and the first thing we notice is the stillness. It’s actually not that quiet or still at all, but compared to the roar of the wind outside, it positively resembles a monastery. Walks of hikers* are spread around the room, sitting on benches and lunching at wooden tables, reading brochures, buying sweatshirts, dozing, asking questions of the volunteer who keeps everything in order.
* Walks of hikers. Like congregations of alligators or quivers of cobras or flinks of cows. Y’know, walks of hikers.
These huts are solid stone buildings housing a kitchen, bathrooms, coed bunk rooms with enough space to sleep 90 hikers. Bunks are stacked two, three, four high. Mattresses, pillows and blankets are provided along with dinner and breakfast. Hikers make reservations and pay a fee to stay here. There are no showers and no access to electricity but you can buy souvenirs. Most of the huts have a small library. Our hut has bound trail registers dating back decades. There is even an emergency room in case the weather gets too ornery. You will find only hikers at this hut — there is no other way to get here. Not all the huts are like this one; two are wheelchair accessible.
No trash cans. You bring it in, you carry it out. This has been the trend on national forest land for years. It might be a funds-saving tactic but it is also a way to instill awareness in the hiker/visitor. You have responsibility to take care of this place. No one has been hired to clean up after your sorry ass.
Each facility is manned by a volunteer. Manned is not the best word as our volunteer is a woman. Try this: Each facility is personned by a volunteer. These knowledgable folk can offer maps, weather information, advice and stories.
Our volunteer is very friendly. Also she is clear about the need for hikers to pay attention to the likelihood of extreme weather, beyond their expectations. “Be careful to stay on the trail or the rock surface as the alpine vegetation is fragile and stepping on it can be damaging,” she instructs. “Make sure you have enough water and stay hydrated. Dress in layers because the wind is blowing on the summit.”
I’m thinking, this is Mount Washington and the wind is blowing. Tell me something I don’t know. Then she says, and this is where it gets interesting, “Today, the wind at the summit is up. Maybe 80 miles per hour.”
I say, “Really? 80 miles per hour? I don’t even know what that means.”
She says, “That’s hurricane force.”
You want to talk about wind? This is the place. It is so windy here that it has become impossible for me to maintain my coiffure.
A weather guy once explained it to me: Let’s say, hypothetically, you are hiking along on a mountainside, minding your own business. The wind is blowing. You are aware that you are having some difficulty making your way ahead. You need to concentrate to push yourself through the blowing air. A 50 mile per hour wind requires effort, but you can make progress.
What about at 100 miles per hour? The effects of wind do not increase linearly with the speed, but rather they increase exponentially. This means that if you double the wind speed, say from 50 to 100 mph, what you feel is way stronger than twice what you experienced at 50. In 100 mph wind, you are struggling, wrestling the blasting wind just to stay upright. You really don’t want to get knocked over so you use your hiking poles. But they are getting sucked into the wind, sometimes flapping around, whistling. It is non-stop white noise turbulence.
Spending a lot of time in the woods and wilderness, I’ve developed a philosophy, as have many other hikers/backpackers. Ordinarily when I hear hikers talk about weather conditions, I think, “There’s no such thing as bad weather. Just the wrong choice of clothing.” This time however, I concede. This monster wind must be respected. Sure, wear the right clothing, but it ain’t gonna change the wind.
Whose dumb idea was it to hike to this summit!
Our rest at the hut completed, wind be damned! Lisa and I are on a mission. We gather our gear and start up from the hut on the Crawford Path, the oldest continuously maintained hiking trail in the United States, thanks to the Appalachian Mountain Club. Immediately we are provided with reading material, a sign with this warning…
STOP
THE AREA AHEAD HAS THE WORST WEATHER IN AMERICA.
MANY HAVE DIED THERE FROM EXPOSURE, EVEN IN THE
SUMMER. TURN BACK NOW IF THE WEATHER IS BAD.
If you read anything about Mount Washington, you have read about the weather. Up here, they call the weather “bad.” The sign is not an empty warning for yahoos. It’s for all of us, no matter our experience. I mean, we’re already expecting blow-me-down winds on today’s hike.
Our climb from the Lakes of the Clouds hut to the summit is 1.6 miles on exposed rock, every step higher than the step before. Our volunteer at the hut warned us that the air is moving at hurricane force. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it’s within the range of an F1 tornado. Their explanation of F1 wind goes like this: “Moderate damage…peels surface off roofs, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, moving autos pushed off the roads, attached garages may be destroyed.” As there are no roofs, mobile homes, autos or garages up here, we are not concerned.
That’s a lie.
I once hiked in a tornado. It was in a national forest. Unlike today, with our sometimes clear, sometimes overcast skies with speeding clouds above, that time the atmosphere behaved more like someone had sinned in a blender. It was dark like 3 a.m. in the middle of the afternoon, the wind was high, the pouring rain and thunder were mammoth, tempestuous even. That was a storm. By comparison, this is just a breeze.
But not a breeze to sneeze at. To watch us walk up this mountainside, you might conclude that we drank lunch. Staggering, falling to one side and then the other, we have a good idea where we want to place each footfall, but the foot simply doesn’t fall there. Each step is an adventure as the wind chooses where the foot goes at least as much as we choose.
Of course the wind is not steady. As it blows hard from the left, we don’t realize, we compensate by leaning into it. Then it suddenly stops and we fall to the left. When the wind doesn’t blow, it is just as unbalancing as when it does.
It’s a comedic dance. We don’t actually fall down, but it resembles the walk of the stagger-under-the-streetlamp drunk. I mean, this is full goose Bozo wind here. You’d think our skinny hiking poles would not be much affected, but my poles, like my legs, don’t go where I want them to go.
I see Lisa’s pack strap, whipped by the wind, repeatedly whack her in the face. Let me fix that for you.
We push through the wind to get to the top, somehow not becoming airborne. Here’s a building with chains set to the roof and extending down to anchor in the ground. They’re not for show, they’re real. This building is chained to the ground to keep it from blowing away. No kidding. The building was designed to withstand wind up to 300 miles per hour! It replaced the building that was here in 1934, the one where the highest surface wind speed on Earth was recorded.
Think of what it feels like when you are motoring on the interstate. You’re doing, what, 65 miles per hour, 75 mph, or faster if you are Lisa. You stick your hand out the window and it gets jerked back, slammed by the wind. That’s similar to what we are hiking through here on the face of Mount Washington.
When I summited Mount Washington thirty years ago, trailhead was sunny and warm. During our climb, we stayed toasty comfy for the entire hike. By the time we reached the summit, the temperature had dropped 40°. We still felt comfortable with shorts and a light jacket because of the internal heat we had generated during our climb. Lucky us the skies were still clear but we overheard someone mention the minus 40 degree temperatures the night before. We were astonished by that concept.
Forty below is quite an extreme temperature, don’t you think? So extreme it is that, for the heck of it, I checked the records. The lowest temperature ever recorded on Mount Washington in August was 20°. Someone was pulling our tired hiker legs.
As attested by the sign earlier in our hike, the folks here at the Mount Washington Observatory are happy to publicize their favorite mountain by calling it the “Home of the World’s Worst Weather.” In the December, 1940 issue of Appalachia magazine, published by the Appalachian Mountain Club, Charles Brooks wrote an article titled “The Worst Weather In the World.” Brooks has an impressive resumé: Professor of This, Director of That and one of the founders of the Mount Washington Observatory. Even though, by the end of the article, Brooks concluded that Mount Washington probably does not have the worst weather in the world, it surely has the worst weather of any place visited by so many people. Undaunted by the facts, the publicists make the claim anyway. It adds to the charm, don’t you think?
Mount Washington is famous for a number of things: the highest peak in the Northeast and the first cog railway, for example. Another claim to fame is the aforementioned wind speed record. To wit…
April 10, 1934
The dawning of a typical April 10, which is to say, most of New England begins the budding warmth of spring. But still, it is winter on the Presidential Range. A weak storm system is noted over the western Great Lakes.
April 11
A brilliant sunrise at the Observatory on Mount Washington, but by afternoon, a foot of rime ice (water droplets from clouds freezing into ice on the surfaces of objects) has built up on outside structures. North and east of Washington the high pressure continues to climb while the pressure to the west continues to drop. Winds at the Observatory reach 136 miles per hour. Hurricane strong, notable, but not alarming. Oompha, Ammonuisance, Elmer, Manx and Tikky are observed to huddle near the coal stove. Cats.
April 12
4 a.m., one of the weather guys who works in the Observatory takes a wind speed measurement. 105 mph. No big deal at all. In fact, such a little deal that something must be wrong. The wind sounds so much louder and stronger than 105 that the scientist guy becomes suspicious of the measuring equipment. Dressing in heavy jackets, he grabs a wooden club and exits the building. Or he tries to exit. The wind is so strong that when he opens the door, he gets knocked backwards right on his ass. Finally making his way outside, he slams the side of the anemometer with the club over and over, finally clearing the rime ice from the device. The club slips from his hands but instead of falling to the deck, the wind grabs the club and it flies away into the fog.
Mount Washington is at the convergence of several storm tracks, mainly from the South Atlantic, the Gulf region and the Pacific Northwest. The Presidential Range juts up from the valley in a north-south orientation; westerly winds slam smack into the range. These mountains are relatively close to the Atlantic Ocean and lakes and rivers are all over the place here, contributing to a moisture laden atmosphere. With the concurrence of all these conditions, winds rated at hurricane force occur here about 110 days each year, including today.
Now that the anemometer has been freed of its rime ice, its reading shoots up to 150 miles per hour, more like what our scientist expects. The pressure gradient between the west and the east continues to build. All the different elements are doing exactly what they need to do to create a monster storm.
Later it was calculated that the <average> wind speed on this day was a colossal 129 miles per hour!
Throughout the day of April 12, the storm continues to build. The wind repeatedly registers an unbelievable 220 mph. Then at 1:21 p.m., the scientists record the fantastical reading of 231 miles per hour, what turns out to be the world’s highest natural surface wind velocity ever, anywhere. Woo-hoo!
Other wind storms have challenged this record but none of the challengers could take the crown. In several instances, wind speed could not be verified because the instruments could not stand up to the punishment. So they broke. The record stands.
So do we.