Umsaskis
New member
Ever since my sister reported that she had begun hiking at 5:00 am from Pinkham Notch and reached the summit of Washington at 7:00 and saw NOBODY, I've been jealous. Last fall I mentioned this to my husband and he said, "why don't we walk up the auto road at night and see the sunrise from the summit?" Great idea!
So last Friday we had perfect weather and we did it. Now, my usual perspective on the auto road is that I would never set foot, wheel or other on it unless my grandmother desperately wanted to see the top and couldn't get there any other way. But for certain, walking up that road in the middle of the night has an appeal all its own. Without having to watch your feet or use headlamps, you can climb higher and higher, and can see the shadows of trees and rocks in the moonlight that enable you to only guess at what it looks like. On the one hand you feel like you are taking a walk at night near home on any old road, only it's terribly quiet and the trees stick up into the starry sky as dark shadows. Washington at night allows you to see the stars quite well even when there is a half moon. It was spectacular.
The downside of doing this is that we pulled an all-nighter - something I haven't successfully done since grad school. I am a morning person and my husband is a night owl, so for the first couple of hours I felt like falling asleep every time we stopped, while he was chugging along happily. Then, after about 3:00am, I started picking up and he started snoozing during our breaks.
We reached the summit at 4:30, well ahead of sunrise, with just enough time to get cold and sleepy all over again. We took pictures of the summit sign in the dark, devoid of people. I managed to doze for a bit on a bench near the summit building (which I could stretch out on because there was NOBODY on it at 4:30 in the morning). Around 5:15 I woke up and saw an orange line across the entire horizon in the east. Over the next half hour, it grew, then faded as everything became light, and then the sun started to appear, bright red. It always amazes me how quickly the sun actually rises, especially when I am frantically trying to change the camera batteries!
After the sun was completely risen and all the pictures had been taken, we explored the summit. Usually when I climb Washington, I run up to the summit and back down as fast as I can to get away from the crowds, so although this was my 4th time up, I actually had no idea what it really looked like up there. This time we got to look around a bit. Around 7:00 a couple of observatory workers came out to look around, and at 7:30 we headed down the Nelson Crag Trail. Which, by the way, can be torture when you want to do nothing but sit down and go to sleep. And as you may have guessed, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches don't quite work at 5:00 am.
So last Friday we had perfect weather and we did it. Now, my usual perspective on the auto road is that I would never set foot, wheel or other on it unless my grandmother desperately wanted to see the top and couldn't get there any other way. But for certain, walking up that road in the middle of the night has an appeal all its own. Without having to watch your feet or use headlamps, you can climb higher and higher, and can see the shadows of trees and rocks in the moonlight that enable you to only guess at what it looks like. On the one hand you feel like you are taking a walk at night near home on any old road, only it's terribly quiet and the trees stick up into the starry sky as dark shadows. Washington at night allows you to see the stars quite well even when there is a half moon. It was spectacular.
The downside of doing this is that we pulled an all-nighter - something I haven't successfully done since grad school. I am a morning person and my husband is a night owl, so for the first couple of hours I felt like falling asleep every time we stopped, while he was chugging along happily. Then, after about 3:00am, I started picking up and he started snoozing during our breaks.
We reached the summit at 4:30, well ahead of sunrise, with just enough time to get cold and sleepy all over again. We took pictures of the summit sign in the dark, devoid of people. I managed to doze for a bit on a bench near the summit building (which I could stretch out on because there was NOBODY on it at 4:30 in the morning). Around 5:15 I woke up and saw an orange line across the entire horizon in the east. Over the next half hour, it grew, then faded as everything became light, and then the sun started to appear, bright red. It always amazes me how quickly the sun actually rises, especially when I am frantically trying to change the camera batteries!
After the sun was completely risen and all the pictures had been taken, we explored the summit. Usually when I climb Washington, I run up to the summit and back down as fast as I can to get away from the crowds, so although this was my 4th time up, I actually had no idea what it really looked like up there. This time we got to look around a bit. Around 7:00 a couple of observatory workers came out to look around, and at 7:30 we headed down the Nelson Crag Trail. Which, by the way, can be torture when you want to do nothing but sit down and go to sleep. And as you may have guessed, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches don't quite work at 5:00 am.
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