8/28/12 – 1857 miles
Early in the evening the clouds rolled in and wind picked up in intensity. By morning there was a storm headed toward Mount Washington and we knew the day would be a challenging hike to our next destination Madison Hut. The trail was almost completely above treeline, leaving little protection from the wind. At times we could only see 20 yards in front of us. We picked our way cautiously along a rock boulded ridge, climbing higher into the void of mist, hanging onto anything we could grab, while the wind tried with all its might to blow us off the mountain.
After many hours of climbing, a brief rain and sleet shower soaked our clothes and made the rocks even harder to negotiate. Finally, the buildings on the summit of Washington came into view and we scurried inside to dry out and warm up. In all we spent about an hour eating, looking at exhibits, and warming our tired bodies.
The hike down from Mt. Washington was even worse, if you can believe it. The wind blew so hard it would rip the pack covers from our packs and several times we lost our balance and fell against some boulders when the wind would catch us without a brace. We found out later that the gusts were clocked up to 70 mph.
At about 6:00 pm we finally reached Madison Hut and booked bunks for the night. Because of the weather there were many cancellations and plenty of room for us. It was expensive but we were too tired to work for our stay. We enjoyed a good meal and slept safe.
Isn’t Mount Washington the place where wind gusts have been measured as strongest of any, at least in the east? I seem to remember that from my days in the East.
The strongest sustained wind in the world (which excludes tornadoes) was recorded at Mount Washington, 231 mph.
http://www.mountwashington.org/about/visitor/recordwind.php
Mt. Washington had the highest wind gust ever recorded on earth between 1934 and 2010 at 231 MPH, according to Wikipedia. Now you have been to the highest point in the east as well as the highest point in the west.
Does anyone know where the strongest winds in the world have been measured? 😉 😉
Hang on! You’re almost there, now!!
Australia, in 1996 during cyclone Olivia. It was not reported as official until 2010 because it was recorded by an automatic weather station and not a human. It took a while to decide if it was official. It was 253 MPH.
Dick, remember that you climbed Mt. Whitney. I think that must be higher.
Yes, Mom. Dale and I climbed Mt. Whitney together. That’s what I meant by my comment that he has now been to the highest point in the East and the West. And yes, Mt. Whitney is much higher. In fact, our home in Edgewood was at a higher elevation than Mt. Washington.
Richard, I was joking, because all three comments before mine referenced that Mt Washington had the strongest wind gust ever measured (non tornado). I thought it was funny you were all in the same mindset.
And the big tornado in Oklahoma two days before Megan was born had the highest wind speed ever measured at 318mph.
I know you were kidding. I thought it was funny too. Daryl and I posted at the same time without seeing each others posts.
By the way, the 318 in the tornado is not officially recognized because it was estimated by doppler radar and not actually measured by a wind measuring device.
Hmmm, interesting. It sure seemed like the highest when we were huddling in the coat closet under the stairs. Glad it didn’t come any closer than 8 miles to Robin & Ken’s house.
Anyway, we have probably derailed Dale’s blog post enough, so “Go Dale!”