Last week’s hiking trip to the White Mountains was to have been our final trip before the wedding and honeymoon, but then Mr. Pinault saw a particularly dandy weather forecast and said to me “I have a dream.”
“You do?” I said, surprised by the uncharacteristic willfulness in his eyes.
“You and me, babe,” he said, for that is his pet name for me. “This Labor Day, we will climb Mt. Washington!”
Mount Washington, the 6288-foot crown of the White Mountains! The highest mountain in Northeast United States! Holder of the world record for highest wind gust on the Earth’s surface (231 mph), with winds regularly exceeding hurricane force 110 days a year! You and me, babe.
We decided to make it an overnight trip, and drove to the White Mountains on Sunday to warm-up on Mount Carrigan, a 4700-foot summit with an old fire tower that affords sweeping panoramic views. It was on Mount Carrigan that I discovered a paralyzing fear of old fire towers set upon windy mountain summits. After I was coaxed to the top of the tower, I could nary stand up for fear of passing out. It was both comical and terrifying (here for Mount Carrigan pictures), as so many things about my life are.
Sunday night we crashed at Shakespeare’s Inn, our favorite area dive motel, so named after the owner (I’m reticent to ask him about his serendipitous surname because I suspect it has something to do with slavery.) In the morning I ate the most amazing pancakes for breakfast. Seriously, for the first two hours of hiking to Mount Washington, all I thought about was the yumminess of these pancakes. And they were extremely filling, and I bounded up the trail with pancake-powered vigor.
When we reached the Alpine zone above the treeline, the Mount Washington summit was in our sights (see picture below), but the vociferous wind daunted our ambitions. We couldn’t stand straight, let alone hike (later, the Internet told us the average wind speed was 45 mph, with gusts reaching 80 mph). It was difficult to call off our Mount Washington expedition when we were only 1.3 miles away, but hey, I’m getting married in 3 weeks, and neither broken bones nor hypothermia will keep me from walking prettily to the altar.
We decided to settle for Mount Monroe, which was .5 mile from the Lakes of the Clouds hut. The velocity of a steady, unrelenting wind was exhausting, and we crawled to the Monroe summit to take the victory photographs with the props meant for Mount Washington: Me with the novelty bridal veil from my bachelorette weekend, and Mr. Pinault with his French flag (see pictures below). It is so very, very windy.
Mr. Pinault keeps saying that we failed at climbing Mount Washington, but I try to salve his dream deferred and say we succeeded at climbing Mount Monroe (here for Mount Monroe pictures).
