Mount Washington
New Hampshire
August 2013
By comparison, the summit of Texas has a metal pyramid and rocks and rubble. Arizona has a sign and some rocks and rubble. Rhode Island has a hand painted sign and a rock. Virginia has some boulders. New Hampshire has more people than you can shake a stick at, which is what I want to do. Lisa won’t let me.
At many of the other state summits, a crowd means possibly a half dozen people. You naturally fall into conversation with your comrades. It is an easy connection with other zany folks, bonding by the similar mission of high point summiting. Here at the top of Mount Washington, it feels, literally, like an afternoon at the amusement park. There are touristy attractions.
You look around and gawk, you stick with the person you came with, or you try to keep an eye on your little rug rats. Where’s the rest room? Can I buy some souvenirs? Ooh, look at the line at the restaurant. Look at the longer line at the women’s room!
But here we are; nowhere for a thousand miles as the crow drives is the land so high. And, we can shop! People are swarming the shops in the summit building.
I can’t help but notice an abundance of clothing with Boston athletic team logos: Red Sox caps, Bruins jerseys, Celtics T-shirts. As we are pushing through to try to get to the rest rooms, we overhear a ten-year-old exclaim, “Eww, it smells like puke! Oh, it’s the chili.” His mom fails at getting him to keep his voice down.
We wander around for a while, as we always do at summits. The volume of people here comes in all shapes and contours. We delay our actual summiting hoping to get the tippy top to ourselves. Alas, a large crowd surrounds the fifteen foot high mound of rocks; cold, antsy people getting blown about in the famous Mount Washington wind, waiting in line to get to the sign at the top. We too wait, understanding very quickly that to spend too much time with the summit sign could get you lynched by these anxious visitors. Meanwhile, the wind blows fiercely and people are stumbling on the tricky rock surface, trying desperately to remain upright. Toppling over could lead to nasty cuts and contusions. Worse, it would be embarrassing, falling off the top of the state, as you would no doubt be in someone’s way.
