Mount Washington

We drove up the Base Station and from there took the Cog Railway up and back to the top of the Mountain, the highest peak in the White Mountains and the Northeast, with elevation at the summit at 6,288 feet. And as you can imagine, the temperatures can be beyond cold - the record low is negative 34 degrees.

.We chose to take the  The Cog Railroad up the mountain ( you can hike it or take the Mt Washington Auto Road).  The railroad opened in 1869 and has not changed much.  It is a 3 mile trip up the mountain.  They offer limited trips on the steam train (it has to stop half way up at the water tank for a fill up - looked pretty scary to me, hanging there at such an incline.  We took one of the biodiesel and even it had a few scary moments.

The original

 
 This is our train

The black wheels in the back are the manual hydraulic brakes.  They use them on  the way down to control th espeed of trip since the coach is not hooked up to the engine. I tried not to think about that part.

And we are ready

Because of work on the track, the early runs were delayed so we ended up following the steam engine up

 
Our engineer who need a great job with the narrative.

The view going up and coming down.  The center track is th one used by the Cog.

 

Note the timber - this is where the tracks were destroyed by a storm last October and fell.


'
Hikers - more doing it than I would have thought



 Helicopter pad used by Armed Forces in extreme weather.training
 

 
The Top

In the clouds

 

The Observation tower was closed - bummer

We got lucky. The weather was perfect that day - only 50 degrees at the top.  It was a great experience.  I am glad I didn't let my fears prevent us from doing this.

Well it is time to move on. We are headed to Maine, the reason for this adventure.  We are both looking forward to spending a month there and eating lots and lots of lobster, my new favorite food.

Next Destination:  Patton Pond, ME