Many thanks to Steve who was able to re-route me and get me to the Mt. Washington summit. But I am getting ahead of myself.
My plan today was to hike Mt. Washington again but this time via a route that Derek and I had noticed, the Great Wall trail:
The trail is awesome with views, on average, much better that the main trail. For example:
A couple of sections of the trail are closely bordered by what I would categorize as, well, as great walls:
I was following footprints. There was so much snow, and I did not know the way, so the “trail” for me was footprints from someone a few days previously who had blazed the way:
Ultimately the footprints just stopped and doubled-back. Uh oh! But I pushed on (and on and on) and finally got to a rocky outcrop just below a summit. It was a summit but not the one I was looking for. That’s when I turned around and decided to back-track to the main trail and go up to the summit from there.
But, luckily for me, I ran into Steve, who showed me the correct route. This is a marvelous trail, and it gets ultra-steep right at the end. But well worth it for the views on the top:
And:
And:
I was hoping to do this route and get back to the car in 5 hours, because I am only going to have 5 hours to hike on Wednesday. I think this route is a bit long for 5 hours but – this hike is great via both trails, we could do the main trail up and down (perhaps that jog to the right at the pond for a switch) in 5 hours no sweat.
Looking forward to Wednesday and thanks again to Steve! Without Steve I would have failed in my mission of getting to the summit via Great Wall