Mighty Mt. Washington

People from out west, and especially the Rocky Mountain region, look scornfully at mountains in the east coast. And when it comes to scale, it is true, that nothing out east can compare with even modest peaks in, say, Colorado. But as this New York Times feature reminds us all, New Hampshire's Mt. Washington might seem unimpressive compared to its western brethren, the northeast's highest peak is bad ass when it comes to weather conditions, which dwarf the mountains of the Rockies in severity as surely as those mountains dwarf Mt. Washington in sheer altitude.

Mt. Washington

There are certainly taller mountains than New Hampshire's Mt. Washington. But there are not a lot of places that are more rugged. The Washington Post travel section featured Mt. Washington and its worst-in-the-world weather

this weekend. Twenty years ago this summer a group of friends and I spent a weekend hiking and camping high in Mt. Washington on a break from a summer program at St. Paul's School in Concord. The weekend still lives within me, and in my mind's eye I'll probably always be 17, surrounded by friends and the Presidential Range.