jcpatten Wrote:
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> Kevin, you must be in pretty good shape to be able
> to hike up Mt Washington twice in two-three weeks!
> Aren't you glad the railroad company put in that
> road next to the tracks for you to hike up?

Hi James,

I’m certainly not in that kind of shape now. . Back in 2008, I did indeed hike up as far as Waumbek Tank, twice in one week. That was quite a workout. It’s about a mile distance and 1,000 vertical feet. Figure you’ve done the Empire State Building by the stairs. The first time I was with some of the charter party that visited the WW&F two days prior. I hiked with the leader, who was 3 years younger than me. We were the two oldest guys there and we made it in about 40 minutes, arriving about 20 minutes before guys who were 20 years younger. I don’t think I could do that today. No, most of my hiking on Mt. Washington has been DOWN the mountain. We would ride the train to the top and then hike to the bottom. In those days, there was no “road” except from about Jacob’s Ladder on down. The hike from the summit to the Homestretch, to Skyline and Long Trestle was away from the tracks and was definitely not an easy hike. But yes, after the photography was done at the “Ladder”, it was nice to have a path of sorts to get back to the car in roughly an hour or so. Today, the path pretty much runs the length of the line, as they have been doing a lot of construction up there, basically completely replacing all of the 25 lb. rail with 100 lb. rail. On both of my recent visits, I was riding the train both ways. I think those were my first two rides DOWN the mountain on a diesel-powered train.

/Kevin Madore



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2020 07:31AM by KevinM.