Mount Washington!

Hey everyone! Yesterday, I did something super awesome...I climbed Mount Washington! Yes, we actually hiked it. Not that that's hard to believe, but there is a road you can drive up and a little train that will take you to the top. Even though those are probably less tiring ways of getting to the summit, we took the challenge of hiking there! Mount Washington is the highest peak in the northeastern United States, at 6,289 feet.
We got up super early in the morning, around 4:50am, because we were carpooling with some friends who would be hiking with us. We left around 5:30am. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way, and Skye let me get a doughnut AND coffee! I don't normally get to drink coffee, so this was pretty special. It took us about 2 hours to get there. Once we arrived, we made sure we had everything, and went inside the place at the bottom to go to the bathroom and plan out our route to the top.
                                      Here I am in front of the model of the mountains.

Around 8:00am we began our ascent!

Along the way, we saw a lot of waterfalls. They were so pretty!

I posed for a picture in front of this waterfall, but you can't really see it.

Skye took this one of me while I was hiking up.

There was a rest stop about half way up the mountain called the Caretakers Cabin. You could go to the bathroom, take a rest, and refill your water bottle there. Behind me is Mt. Washington.

I took this one as we began to hike above the fog. Look at the clouds! It was like looking down at a lake, only they were clouds!

We stopped to take a break at one of the cairns. Skye took this picture of me with a bunch of lovely scenery behind me.

This is the view of Tuckerman's Ravine from the Lion Head trail.

Here's the "Lion's head", what the Lion Head trail is named after. To tell you the truth, I don't see the Lion's head, but maybe that's just me.

Here's the view of the clouds. Pictures don't do the view justice; it was like looking at an ocean of fluffy white fluff.

Here I am in front of the sea of fluffy white fluff, with other mountaintops peeking through.

In this one, Tuckerman's Ravine is behind me. It was kind of creepy sitting up there, because we were so high up.

Looking down, you could see the Caretakers Cabin and the little ponds near it. It was amazing to think just a few hours before we had been down there looking up!

About an hour later, we had made it to the summit!!!

My hair was blowing all around and was super crazy, because there were 50mph gusts of wind. Skye had to stand behind me to make sure I didn't get blown off the top of the sign, it was that windy!

At the summit, there was a building with gift shops and a food court type place, where we rested for about a half hour. I ate lunch and then went into one of the gift shops. I got a cute little pin for my jacket that said I climbed Mount Washington.

Before we started the hike back down, I took a picture with the State Park sign. 

This is what the climb to and from the summit looks like. It's really, really rocky!

Believe it or not, I think the climb back down the mountain is harder than the climb up. This is because you have to be careful not to tumble down head first. It's also really hard on your knees.

This was taken a little while after we had started to hike back down. That's Mount Washington behind me. On the very top and a little to the left, you can see sort of cell/radio tower looking things and a tiny building. We had been up there next to those things! We climbed all the was up the side of the mountain! I thought it was crazy to think that we had just been up there, and had hiked all of that.

The view from where we were standing was extraordinary. 

Hiking Mount Washington was so much fun. It was also really tiring! I slept for 12 hours, and when I woke up, my legs felt so stiff! The views were so pretty, and it was just a cool experience. Have you ever climbed a tall mountain? Do you like to hike?

This has been Dani, dabbling in climbing mountains. Over and out!