Mount Washington by Tuckerman Ravine

The walk starts at the AMC's Pinkham Notch Visitor Center on Route 16. The Tuckerman Ravine Trail leaves from behind the buildings as a wide, rocky track, passes the viewpoint for Crystal Cascade and climbs steadily to the Hermit Lake Shelters, 2.4 miles up. From there it climbs more steeply to the floor of the ravine and then very steeply up the headwall. Above the junction with the Alpine Garden Trail it climbs the summit cone over boulders for another 1,000 feet to the top. Return the same way.

It is 8.0 miles (12.9 km) round trip with 4,200 feet (1,281 m) of climbing; allow about 8½ hours. The grade is Strenuous: a very big climb, steep and rough, with the upper half above the trees.

The weather on Mount Washington can be deadly in any month: a gust of 231 mph was measured on the summit in 1934. Read the Mount Washington Observatory's Higher Summits Forecast before you start, carry warm and waterproof clothing, and turn back if the weather closes in.

From late fall to late spring, and sometimes into early summer, the trail is under snow and ice, with avalanche danger: the Forest Service calls it a mountaineering ascent then, needing ice axe and crampons. Each spring it closes the section from Lunch Rocks to the Alpine Garden Trail because of falling ice and steep snow.

Route drawn by Global Adventurer along OpenStreetMap paths (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), with figures worked out from it. Check the forecast and the ground on the day: paths change.