| Summary | None |
| Owner | Eric Gilbertson |
| Creation Date | 2009-05-19 21:36:29 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Eric Gilbertson, Philip Kreycik, Matthew Gilbertson, Simon Foelling
Joined by Wes Kelman and Adam Traina 5.16.09 157 miles 11000 ft elevation gain Cambridge to Washington Summit in 16 hours 21 minutes Author: Eric Four brave cyclists decided last Saturday to reach the top of Mount Washington completely under their own power – kind of like hiking to the top instead of driving up the auto road – except this trip would start well over one hundred miles south in Boston. The journey started at 2:30am when Matthew and I left our dorm to head over to Harvard. We met up with Philip, Simon, and Wes at the Harvard Outing Club headquarters and were heading north by 3am. The forecast for Mount Washington was for rain starting in the evening, so we had to get a super early start to have a decent chance of summiting. I don’t think any of us had gotten more than a few hours of sleep that night, but we were so pumped up with excitement for the ride that it didn’t matter. Cambridge was surprisingly busy for that hour and I think all the partiers were just starting to head home. Once we left the city, though, we basically had the road to ourselves for the next 4 hours. Around 5am my chain broke and we were forced to take our first break after about 35 miles. It was a quick fix but reminded us how even a minor bike issue could jeopardize our chances at beating the rain to the summit. By mile 45, a little ways into New Hampshire, Wes decided to turn around because he had an obligation that morning back in Boston. We had had a slight tailwind at the beginning but by this time it was either calm or maybe from a different direction. Either way we could definitely feel it as we cruised along at 20mph and began drafting off each other to save energy. We reached our halfway point in Rochester, NH and celebrated by stopping at a Dunkin Donuts to refuel. I got the best-tasting ham and egg sandwich I can remember and the other guys loaded up too. I knew it would be a tough day when I was already getting tired of the food I had brought and we were only halfway through the day. The breaks started becoming a little more frequent after Rochester – about every 20 miles as the terrain became a little hillier. We were taking a different route than most people take driving up to Mt Washington and we got to see all kinds of little scenic towns. We even touched our tires in Maine for a few miles. By about 1pm we cruised into North Conway and got our first good look at Washington. The sky was so clear we could see the summit towers – it was amazing. But we knew from the forecast that it wouldn’t last long. We split a bunch of ice cream and bananas at Hanafords and met up with Adam, who had hiked Chocorua that morning and was going to climb Washington with us. We agreed to meet him again up at Pinkham and started riding again. We were moving pretty fast around 20mph near intervale and to my surprise another guy on a super-fancy bike started passing us! I figure he probably hadn’t ridden 140 miles so far that day on one hour of sleep so I felt no need to race him. We took one final refueling break at Glen and then climbed up to Pinkham by 3:30. It felt like we were basically done at that point – we had come over 150 miles already and all we had left was a measly 4 more miles up to the summit. That’s not even 3% of how far we’d come! And to think, most people make a full day of summiting Washington. We had a little trouble finding Adam (it turned out he was taking a nap outside) and eventually hit the trail around 4:45. By that time the summit looked completely socked in with clouds and it was starting to rain a little, but there was no way we would give up without a fight. We were definitely the only group ascending the trail at that point and all kinds of skiers and snowboarders were heading down from a day in Tuck’s. We got about a mile up the Lion’s Head summer route and stopped to take a quick break. Adam had turned back earlier because of a cramped leg, and Matthew decided he was too worn out to go any farther. It was about 6:15 then and the rain had quit but the clouds still looked quite ominous. Philip, Simon, and I decided that, with sunset at 8pm, we absolutely had to summit by 7:30 or risk being stuck above treeline in the dark, rain, and fog where headlamps would be useless. Shortly after this decision we came upon the one sketchy snow traverse of the route and met a group of 14 descending. Great. The lady in the front was terrified of the traverse and took a full 10 minutes to get across maybe a 10ft section. The worst part was we couldn’t go around them because we didn’t have crampons. After that debacle we couldn’t suffer any more delays and quickly went up the trail. At Lion’s Head the wind was howling at around 50mph and it was extremely foggy, but we could just make out the cairns and decided to proceed. I wore my blindingly bright biking jacket to be easily seen and we cautiously made our way up, with me looking anxiously at my watch every few minutes. By 7:21 we reached the top! 16 hours and 21 minutes from Boston all under our own power! The visibility had deteriorated further but was just enough to proceed. It was way too windy to set up my camera for a group shot so we took several summit shots and after about 30 seconds decided to get outa there. I later read online that the wind was sustained at 60mph. As we were descending it started to rain and we knew we had cut it pretty close. But we made it to treeline before it got too dark and knew we were safe then. By 9:30 we got to Pinkham, definitely the last ones off the mountain that day, and were greeted with pizzas complements of Matthew and Adam. I quickly dismissed the idea of biking back to Boston the next day in the pouring rain with a pulled muscle in one of my legs, and we all rode back that night with Adam, arriving around 3am for a 24-hour round trip. |