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I am planning to climb Mt. Washington via the Lion Head Winter Route on December 30. If the weather on Mt. Washington looks too nasty, my back-up will be the Old Bridle Path on Mt. Lafayette. If you are totally self-sufficient and want to come along, let me know.

PM sent.

cheers

Knox

At the risk of sounding patronizing - have you read the forecast for 12/30? You are lookin gat temperatures in the negative teens with hurricane-force winds, in other words wind chills of 50 below or colder. Having been on both Washington and Lafayette many times in winter in various conditions, I honestly wouldn't recommend either of these tomorrow. But good luck if you try it!

AlexeyD wrote:At the risk of sounding patronizing - have you read the forecast for 12/30? You are lookin gat temperatures in the negative teens with hurricane-force winds, in other words wind chills of 50 below or colder. Having been on both Washington and Lafayette many times in winter in various conditions, I honestly wouldn't recommend either of these tomorrow. But good luck if you try it!

I am shivering from just reading that forecast.

yeah, Backup,backup plan???? (alcohol)

Current summit conditions, -20 w/ 85 mph wind gusts. Windchill -65. Does anyone climb it in those conditions?

The other point I wanted to stress in my response was that I would NOT advise to treat Lafayette as a bad-weather backup to Mt. Washington. Conditions on the Franconia Ridge are often almost as bad and in some cases can even be worse than in the Presidentials. There are numerous other trails in the White Mountains that can be done when conditions in the high ranges are too severe, but the one that the author of this thread suggested is just not one of them. Just my $.02.

EastcoastMike wrote:Current summit conditions, -20 w/ 85 mph wind gusts. Windchill -65. Does anyone climb it in those conditions?

Yes, but not often. You can pretty much ignore wind chill once yo're completely covered, just make damn sure you don't ever need to take off your gloves. But minus 20 is damn cold, and 85mph, while not that unusual on Mt W in winter, is pretty close to unable-to-stand-up levels. Throw in the near-certainty of horrible visibility and instant drifts covering your tracks, and it's not my cup of tea.

And I agree with Alexey: Lafayette is not a bad-weather backup peak. Although the OBP has some advantages in that your level of exposure to wind increases gradually, and avalanche danger on the route is nil, the summit is pretty comparable to the summit of Washington. Maybe more like Boott Spur or Mt Clay, but definitely not a big enough distinction to go up in weather you wouldn't go up Washington in.

The climb (including the back-up climb) has been postponed. Here is Wednesday's forecast for Mt. Washington:

Wind chill values as low as -41. Strong and damaging winds, with a northwest wind 80 to 85 mph decreasing to between 60 and 65 mph.

I was up there last January in similar conditions and was totally unable to walk when I hit the 80+ mph winds on the Lion Head.

It doesn't sound like hiking it right now would be anything but a bad idea.

It sounds like hiking it right now would really be a bad idea.

Sam Page wrote:The climb (including the back-up climb) has been postponed. Here is Wednesday's forecast for Mt. Washington:

Wind chill values as low as -41. Strong and damaging winds, with a northwest wind 80 to 85 mph decreasing to between 60 and 65 mph.

I was up there last January in similar conditions and was totally unable to walk when I hit the 80+ mph winds on the Lion Head.

Sounds fun. No hope of a summit, but I'd love to scramble up for the show. The weather is what this mountain is all about.

After reading Not Without Peril, I respect that Mountain a lot more. Nothing to mess around on and if you try to act tough guy, it will show you whose the boss.

I was in North Conway the last three days and passed on a summit attempt due to the avy danger and windchill. Of course, today looks perfect, now that I am home.

I climbed the Shoestring on Tuesday, and was very glad not to be above the treeline on Washington. It was brutal enough where I was.

Damn! I have friends who were up there at the same time