Good morning all. I'm heading up Mt Washington for my 5th or 6th time, this time with a bunch who have never done it before. I'd like to print off a reliable map that I can laminate and give to each of them... but I can't find anything that I'd consider to be cartography-quality. Just a few internet guys scrawling a line on a quad.

Anyone know where I can find a proper map?

Thanks
Eric

I've yet to see a map of the winter route that shows more detail than you'd get from eyeballing it on a quad. Your best bet is to look for somebody's GPS tracks. (Search for something like "Lion Head Winter GPX".)

The Washburn map does show the winter route, as a nearly-straight line one inch long: http://www.amazon.com/Bradford-Washburn ... 0910146977

If you print out a US Forest Service or USGS map from, say, Caltopo.com, draw in the fire road at the 3500' contour, and draw a descending line so the LH route continues easterly down the ridge from LH (instead of turning sharply southward at around 4240') and hits the fire road between Raymond Path and the Raymond Cataract branch of the Cutler River, you'll have as much detail as the Washburn map. The logic of the route is kind of obvious given the terrain: stay out of Tuckerman Ravine and out of Raymond Cataract. But it helps to follow the blazes, since there are thick trees, and spots where the trail has been improved to help you past icy boulders and what not.

PS It may help to refer to the AMC maps, they show the trails (including the winter route) and the fire road in red ink, which is more legible than the USGS maps, though they sacrifice a lot of terrain info. http://amcstore.outdoors.org/white-moun ... of-map-set

Thanks nartreb.

The trail is easy to find when you're on-route, blazes are far less obvious than the footpath cut into the snow by the Emergency Hut. My concern was to have a map that would definitively get a stranger from the Lions Head back down to Pinkham. There's a junction on the winter trail that goes off to Hermit lake, and it seems to float around from year to year...? I was concerned that an exhausted climber may get crossed up there. I always want to be sure that everyone can operate on their own, should they get spearated.

Ended up being moot, everyone had a good trip mostly. We 4 made it to the Alpine Garden on Friday, before turning around due to some wardrobe malfunctions. It was colder than normal that day, one girl had numb feet, and another completely fogged'n'froze her goggles and had to be led down.

The goggle-freezer wanted another shot, though, so I took her up the next day and she made the top. Extremely exhausted, but she pressed on!

dammit, every time i see this topic pop up, the first thing i think is "who the hell needs a map to find their loin's head?"

Yeah, most of the time it's straight ahead of me, albeit off in the distance.

>There's a junction on the winter trail that goes off to Hermit lake, and it seems to float around from year to year...?

Not an official trail, and I don't recall seeing it, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see a shortcut from Raymond Path. There's a stream to cross, but it's likely narrow and/or frozen at the elevation of the shortcut.