up mt washington--an 'ode' to billy

the day: the 25th of july, yet another beautiful day in the neighborhood! and more importantly, up in the white mountains. sunny and somewhere in the 70's. not too windy save for some breeze up top. not bad at all for "the worst weather in the world."

the adventure: if you live in new england and love to go outside and play! hiking up mount washington is likely on your bucket list. iona asked me 'to do' it a while back, and her father billy's death last year, shifted it to the front burner.

there are dozens of paths up washington, but since billy and i met and had many adventures out of the amc pinkham notch complex, we planned to start there. and what better path to take than the tuck trail, directly through the bowl, over the alpine garden, ending at the summit. 

we came down lion's head back to the tuck trail. then between 2nd and 3rd bridge we cut over to the sherburne ski trail--"far from the madding crowd."

the memories: way too many memories--past and present--to record here, but all of them had me smiling. i had a little déjà vu filling iona's water bottle at the pump next to hermit lake, just below tuckerman ravine. as we climbed into 'the bowl' it struck me that i hadn't been up here in the summer, in a long time. 

without snow, things didn't look familiar until things started to get steep and i saw a person, perched on a rock playing a recorder. when we came up to them, we were greeted with a "hello. is that koby..." it was a former student, danny and what pam calls "a koby sighting." he was there supporting sea to summit triathlon racers. it was sobering that some of the top finishers passed us on the way up.

as we got closer to the top, we started to hear people and vehicles--and a loud cheer for one of the triathletes. it was a bit of a shock for iona. lots of people up there. after a bit of a sit, we found one of them to take a summit shot standing on an overlook. you can almost see lake of the clouds hut off behind us--back in the day billy worked there some. 

going down lion's head, i got a shoe caught and took a tumble.
iona saw it and thought it somewhat elegant, until the blood started pouring out of my hat. ever up to an emergency, she cleaned & patched things up and we continued to descend. 

knees for iona and my quads significantly slowed us on the down. after we crossed over to the sherbie and we got to a steep little headwall i thought i remember, i pronounced it the "last steep section...i think." iona was not convinced but thankfully, there were only four more after that, before we eventually got to the bottom. we were about spent, but down.

notes:

• just like a long bike ride, bring electrolytes--blueberries are nice too!... 
  
• going up is always easier than coming down--and not just because you are knackered...
• hiking with iona is as much fun as it was with billy--even with shoes on...
• tomorrow, take iona, tracey, and pam up square ledge--if our legs still work...

go outside and play!