Hiking from the summit of Washington....

A question I never thought about......

My girlfriend was asking me a whole bunch of hiking questions, and was commenting on how she wouldn't mind taking the cog up to Washington, and then possbily hiking down....which lead to me ponder....

Does it count as a 4000 footer if you drive to the summit of Washington, and then hike from there? Like Adams, Jefferson, etc....

From the 4000 footer FAQs

Q. What are the rules for climbing the peaks?

A. The basic rule is very simple: You must climb (on foot!) to and from the summit of each peak on the list. In winter skis and snowshoes are both allowed (the Committee takes no official position on the use of sleds or 'swiss bobs').

For peaks with trails starting at maintained roads the rule is simple: Drive to the trailhead then walk (note that you are not allowed to use the auto roads on Mts Washington, Mansfield and Equinox). For peaks in areas with rough logging roads you may drive as far as you dare with a normal car (that includes four wheel drive), but ATVs are not allowed. See below for the rules on using mountain bicycles.

You are allowed to count any number of peaks on a single trip and do not necessarily have to end up at the trailhead from which you started (many peaks are commonly done as a traverse, e.g. Bonds, Presidentials).

You must do the whole climb in one contiguous trip (though not necessarily in one day).
e.g. You cannot count climbing Monroe from the summit of Washington after a trip up the Cog Railway because you climbed Washington on a past hike,
or hike up Cannon and take the tramway down then come back later, take the tramway up and hike down.

Is this a trick question ? Is there a Fourth of July in Great Britain ?

My unqualified answer would be; Mt Washington is and always will be "a 4000 footer".

(But she wouldn't be able to count the hike if she wanted a patch.)

Rules....

http://www.amc4000footer.org/faq.htm#rules1

It says something here about the auto road, but is pretty unclear.

For peaks with trails starting at maintained roads the rule is simple: Drive to the trailhead then walk (note that you are not allowed to use the auto roads on Mts Washington, Mansfield and Equinox).

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To me this infers that we are talking about just Mt Washington, Mansfield, or Equinox. If you say, drive up to the Alpine Garden trail on the road, then hike over to Monroe, or even Isolation...would that count? The trip over to Isolation is kind of a haul....

Just wondering...this is what happens when you work on Christmas, your mind wanders.

Chip said:

Is this a trick question ? Is there a Fourth of July in Great Britain ?

My unqualified answer would be; Mt Washington is and always will be "a 4000 footer".

(But she wouldn't be able to count the hike if she wanted a patch.)

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Meaning, can you drive to the summit parking lot, hike from the summit of Washington over to Adams, and have Adams count as a 4k, if you have never done it before?

grouseking said:

My girlfriend was asking me a whole bunch of hiking questions, and was commenting on how she wouldn't mind taking the cog up to Washington, and then possbily hiking down....which lead to me ponder....

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One aspect to ponder is the risk: if you have trouble finding your way down, run out of steam, or your knees hurt too much, your only known escape may be back up to the summit. By the time that you get there the mechanical transport may be shut down for the evening... (I have helped to rescue a party that had taken mechanical transport up Cannon in winter and couldn't find their way down.)

If you start at the bottom and can't continue for any reason, you can backtrack back to your starting point.

FWIW I have hiked up and taken mechanical transport down, but never mechanical up and hike down... (I was having knee problems at the time.)

Doug

DougPaul said:

One aspect to ponder is the risk: if you have trouble finding your way down, run out of steam, or your knees hurt too much, your only known escape may be back up to the summit. By the time that you get there the mechanical transport may be shut down for the evening... (I have helped to rescue a party that had taken mechanical transport up Cannon in winter and couldn't find their way down.)

If you start at the bottom and can't continue for any reason, you can backtrack back to your starting point.

FWIW I have hiked up and taken mechanical transport down, but never mechanical up and hike down... (I was having knee problems at the time.)

Doug

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Yeah I actually don't plan on doing that. I don't know her skill level as a hiker, so I won't go there. But those questions made me wonder if hiking from the summit of Washington over to say, Adams, Jefferson, etc would count as a 4000 footer. Or say, if you drive to the Alpine Garden trail and hike to Monroe from there, or if you are feeling frisky, down to Isolation. I feel like should count. That's a long hike!

grouseking said:

Yeah I actually don't plan on doing that. I don't know her skill level as a hiker, so I won't go there. But those questions made me wonder if hiking from the summit of Washington over to say, Adams, Jefferson, etc would count as a 4000 footer. Or say, if you drive to the Alpine Garden trail and hike to Monroe from there, or if you are feeling frisky, down to Isolation. I feel like should count. That's a long hike!

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If you want to do your own list you I guess you can do them just about any way you want. But...for the official 4000 footer list you must start hiking from a trailhead and finish hiking at a trail head and you can't drive any part of the Mt. Washington road and count the hike and you can't take the cog either up or down and count the hike.

It is a long hike from the summit of Washington to the summit of Adams and back but it still doesn't count if you started from the summit of Washington. On the other hand, if a person is capable of hiking from Washington to Adams and back, that person is probably capable of hiking Adams from the Appalachia trailhead.

People are always going to quibble with rules, but the rules do help to standardize things a bit. There still is quite a bit of leeway. You can bag several peaks on one hike--there is another list where you are only allowed one peak per hike. You can also go up to a shelter and spend the night and continue the next day and count the hike. You can also in some cases connect with more than one hut without going back to a trailhead and count the hike. To get Adams an easier way to do it than an out and back from Washington would be to go up to the Madison Hut and spend the night , then the next day bag Madison and Adams and head back down. There are a lot of different ways you can do it, but you do have to start from a trailhead.

Ed'n Lauky said:

If you want to do your own list you I guess you can do them just about any way you want. But...for the official 4000 footer list you must start hiking from a trailhead and finish hiking at a trail head and you can't drive any part of the Mt. Washington road and count the hike and you can't take the cog either up or down and count the hike.

It is a long hike from the summit of Washington to the summit of Adams and back but it still doesn't count if you started from the summit of Washington. On the other hand, if a person is capable of hiking from Washington to Adams and back, that person is probably capable of hiking Adams from the Appalachia trailhead.

People are always going to quibble with rules, but the rules do help to standardize things a bit. There still is quite a bit of leeway. You can bag several peaks on one hike--there is another list where you are only allowed one peak per hike. You can also go up to a shelter and spend the night and continue the next day and count the hike. You can also in some cases connect with more than one hut without going back to a trailhead and count the hike. To get Adams an easier way to do it than an out and back from Washington would be to go up to the Madison Hut and spend the night , then the next day bag Madison and Adams and head back down. There are a lot of different ways you can do it, but you do have to start from a trailhead.

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Ahh, I see. So under the rules, one can hike from the Alpine Garden trailhead over to Monroe, or down to Isolation. ( I haven't checked mileage, but that trek just sounds like an amazing way to spend a day. Talk about getting your fill of above treeline stuff on a beautiful summer day.)

I'm really not trying to bend rules. I'm looking for new and creative ways to hit some of the peaks we all love, while still having it "count."

Or, if when they are saying to avoid the auto roads for any hikes to count, and not just say, Washington, Mansfield, or Equinox, then I guess my question is answered.

AIn't that a shame.

grouseking said:

Ahh, I see. So under the rules, one can hike from the Alpine Garden trailhead over to Monroe, or down to Isolation. ( I haven't checked mileage, but that trek just sounds like an amazing way to spend a day. Talk about getting your fill of above treeline stuff on a beautiful summer day.)

I'm really not trying to bend rules. I'm looking for new and creative ways to hit some of the peaks we all love, while still having it "count."

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If you drove up to the Alpine Garden in your car you CAN'T count the hike. You can't drive to any point on the Mt. Washington auto road and have it count. From that side you would have to start from Rt. 16 or the Dolly Copp road.

Ed'n Lauky said:

If you drove up to the Alpine Garden in your car you CAN'T count the hike. You can't drive to any point on the Mt. Washington auto road and have it count. From that side you would have to start from Rt. 16 or the Dolly Copp road.

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<spoken in a small innocent voice>
You mean I can't start from Rte 113 S of Evans Notch?
</small innocent voice>


Doug

For peaks with trails starting at maintained roads the rule is simple: Drive to the trailhead then walk (note that you are not allowed to use the auto roads on Mts Washington, Mansfield and Equinox).

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What list is Mt. Equinox on? Certainly not the 4000 footer list... is it a NE HH?

Yes. Equinox is Number 84 or 85 on the list, elevation is approximately 3850 feet, same as Mendon Peak’s.

If you cannot use the auto roads on Washington, Mansfield, and Equinox for Appalachian Mountain Club peakbagging purposes, that means that you cannot use them for peakbagging any peaks, not just peakbagging of the peaks upon which the roads are built. In Colorado, I guess, it’s okay to drive up to the top and hike down 3000 feet in elevation, then climb back up again and have it count, but I don’t know what the AMC’s Four Thousand Footer Committee would think of such a stunt here.

The way the AMC’s rule is written, it appears that it is verboten to even walk on those auto roads, but I think the implication is that you cannot drive on the auto roads. If conditions were such that it was safer to walk down the road than descend through a ravine, I don’t think anyone would deny you the ascent, but I’m not on the committee, so maybe I’m wrong.

How common is it for people to ski up the toll road on Washington in winter? Does it get a lot of use like the Whiteface toll road in the Adirondacks?

Eric Savage has said in the past that it is a hiking club, so that’s why no bikes are allowed (except for reaching the trailhead, obviously). Once at the trailhead, if a car isn’t allowed to go any further, neither is a bicycle. So the United States Forest Service may permit bicycles to be ridden on Lincoln Woods Trail, but it does not allow cars to be driven on Lincoln Woods Trail, so the AMC FTFC does not allow bicycles to be ridden on Lincoln Woods Trail for peakbagging peaks.

I saw a website not too long ago about some guys who rode bicycles when they climbed Owls Head Mountain, and they said that they later learned the bicycles weren’t supposed to have been used, but as far as I could tell, they still claimed the climb; they just didn’t report that they used bicycles. If they didn’t already do this, it would probably have been better if they had gone back and climbed the mountain properly, then reported the error to the FTFC, so the statistic of their year of completing the list could be updated and corrected.

For the non-High Peak Adirondack Hundred Highest and the sub-New England Hundred Highest peaks of the Northeast 3000-Footer list, bicycles are permitted if the local road authority allows them, such as on the logging roads in Maine, or I think in the Santanoni Preserve, and probably too on the land of the various Adirondack fishing and hunting clubs, if you have permission to even be there.

DSettahr said:

How common is it for people to ski up the toll road on Washington in winter?

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I have never seen it done and I believe it is not allowed in general..but..since the east side is more the free style ski side,one would assume its done more then you would think.The roads focus in winter seems to be for the M.W.O. and rescues.I have seen people skin up and ski down the ammo. trail on the west side ,that looked radical!

On thursday,I did the tri,s and talked to 3 dudes who had biked up the livemore ice rink almost up to scaur ridge.I was thinking that their hike may not count as a winter list hike because of the snowmobile rule in winter?Hate to mess them up but rules exist for a reason and the amc list rules seem very well thought out to me..For example;How hard would Baxter be in the winter if you could be dropped off by snowmobile at the base of the abol trail?Everyone and their mother would be able to get that peak.Local example;getting a lift by snowmobile to the start of the north twin trail instead of hiking those snowmobile trails from little river road...Thoughts?

Red Oak said:

who had biked up the livemore ice rink almost up to scaur ridge.I was thinking that their hike may not count as a winter list hike because of the snowmobile rule in winter

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Snowmobiles do not matter in this case. Livermore is not open to cars, therefore you cannot take your bicycle on it.

The spirit of the policy is that you can ride a bike instead of traveling by car, but not instead of hiking. We hope that everyone can be reasonable about self-enforcing this standard so we don't have to come up with more excruciating technicalities.

Pretty clear to me. I've used my bicycle to close a loop, spot my car, etc., but always for road travel. People will skirt the rules, either intentionally or not. One thing I like about the club is that it is entirely on the honor system, so you are only cheating yourself.

Tim

Red Oak said:

On thursday,I did the tri,s and talked to 3 dudes who had biked up the livemore ice rink almost up to scaur ridge.I was thinking that their hike may not count as a winter list hike because of the snowmobile rule in winter?Hate to mess them up but rules exist for a reason and the amc list rules seem very well thought out to me..For example;How hard would Baxter be in the winter if you could be dropped off by snowmobile at the base of the abol trail?Everyone and their mother would be able to get that peak.Local example;getting a lift by snowmobile to the start of the north twin trail instead of hiking those snowmobile trails from little river road...Thoughts?

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Hi Red Oak, the girls and I saw them at the summit of North Tri and then again, down below, hopping back on their bikes near Scaur Ridge. Alex asked me, as we passed them, if hikers could use bikes for the list, and I answered "no, not if they're trying to count the peaks for the 4000 Footer Club." I know at least one of the fellows heard me, but I didn't want to stop and elaborate (plus, really, it wasn't our business). Something tells me that, for them, the day was more about tackling the slides than pursuing the list.