After the XTERRA New England Trail Run Series finale in Hanover, NH, my friend McKinley and I decided to have some additional fun in the White Mountains by climbing world famous Mt. Washington via the Lion’s Head Trail. This was McKinley’s first time on the mountain and he successfully reached the summit after a strenuous climb that only the most fit can typically handle. Congratulations to him! This was my fifth time on the mountain, with three in the winter and two in the summer or spring.

6,288ft Mt. Washington is known for bitter cold, dense fog, heavy snow, record wind and the world’s most extreme weather. The mountain has hurricane force winds over 100 days of the year and claims lives quite often. It’s an extreme mountain that makes an exhilarating adventure outing anytime.

As we got closer to the tree line, the trail became much steeper and required some bouldering and climbing. Shortly after you break the tree line, an amazing view of Tuckerman Ravine awaits you. Tuckerman Ravine is famous for extreme skiing, snowboarding and winter avalanches. During the winter, over up to 50 feet of snow will accumulate in this basin creating some extremely dangerous avalanches and world-class extreme skiing.

We took a short break on the ridge at Tuckerman and then continued the final push to the summit of Mt. Washington. As we looked out towards the summit, we noticed heavy cloud cover and bad weather moving in. Just a couple of days before our climb, there was 80mph winds and hail recorded on the summit.