Date: 2014-07-26
From: Mt. Washington Summit

To: Carlson's Lodge via Crawford Notch
Miles today: 12.5

Since we had decided to ride the cog train up to the summit, we slept in a little later and ate breakfast at the hotel. As we were eating the lady that runs the hotel had called the train station and helped us get tickets - she knew some people at the station so we were able to put the plan into action!Richard dropped us off at the train station - very cool to see the cog trains on the tracks! A very interesting means of propulsion - almost like taking a bike chain and laying it flat on a train track and placing the sprocket underneath the train car. The train also pushes the train car from behind and is not actually coupled to the car in case the train runs into mechanical issues!The train departure was delayed because another train coming down had mechanical issues but we still left close to our scheduled time. An awesome experience riding the cog up - great views along the way and passing over some steep terrain (37% grade in some spots!) on the way to the summit. We rode into and out of fog and finally neared the summit after an hour of going upwards.We made it! The summit of Mt. Washington was really neat and the observatory was nice. When the sky cleared you could see so many things - the Presidential Range and Crawford Notch and the surrounding landscape! The observatory had a great cafeteria with well-priced lunch items and we ate our lunch up there before heading outside to look around.It was pretty chilly up on the summit! It was only 47 degrees when we were there and the wind was blowing around 15 to 20 mph but the sun poked out every once in a while. The wind and the sun opened up great views from Mt. Washington - extremely glad we made it up here on a nice day!Would I have liked to hike up to Mt. Washington? Yes - the feeling of accomplishment would have been outstanding. Could we have made it up there? Possibly but we might not have been able to get down easily. The AT is a journey and everyone completes it in a different way - this just turned out to be ours because of the weather and also getting Big Dawg some rest on his foot.We got the customary picture at the summit sign and after capturing some awesome views of the rest of the Presidential Range further north we started walking back down to the Crawford Notch - going to be a long walk down!So many people at the summit today! We ran into so many hikers walking around the observatory and between the Lake of Clouds Hut - the trail was pretty busy! We had to stop sometimes to let people pass but we still made decent time to the hut.The Lake of Clouds Hut was pretty neat and the two mountains lakes nearby were really cool to see. We ran into Phys Ed at the hut - chatted with him for a while before we both moved on. Glad he made it up to the summit for the nice views!The trail between the huts was nice for the most part - mostly exposed and above the treeline and we had awesome views of the Presidential Range and of the valleys below! There were a couple of good ups and the down to Mizpah Springs Hut was steep but we were making good time. Really glad to be on the open ridges with good weather and nice views - I regret nothing about our decision!We took a break at Mizpah Springs Hut and ran into an old friend - Reset! It was great to see him again and he was glad to see Big Dawg back on the trail. He was hoping to get work-for-stay at the hut and we needed to keep moving - don't want to get back too late!At the summit of Mt. Jackson we called Notch Taxi Service and told Richard we would be back closer to 8 pm - glad we did that! The walking around Webster Cliffs was pretty rough walking and it was a steep down to the notch. Great views from the cliffs though - could see a lot of the notch and the White Mountains that we have already covered! From the cliffs we had several tough rock scrambles as we went down towards the notch but after some time the trail smoothed out and it was nice walking - we even made it down to the trail right around our original estimate! As we were waiting I accidentally flagged someone down because I thought it was Richard - it would have been the easiest hitch for us so far! Since we did not have cell phone service we thanked them for stopping and kept waiting for our ride. Back to the hotel and we made tentative plans for tomorrow - we will have to see what the weather brings!We had amazing views all day - totally worth the trip up! Glad we got up there with nice weather - ready to keep moving on!