Mt. Washington

We got up without the alarm and made a plan of attack for the day. I re-read the pages on New Hampshire from my “Best Road Trips in America” book and remembered that taking the Cog Railway to the summit of Mt. Washington (the highest point in the Northeastern United States) was on my list of things to do. I did a quick internet search and found that today was the last day of the season to take the train all the way to the summit. I checked for ticket availability and there was only one train left that would accommodate us and that train left at 4:00p.m. The website said the trip was about 3 hours round trip, so I thought 4:00 might not be the best choice since it would probably be dark on the way back down the mountain, but seeing as that was our only choice I bought the tickets. I was hoping that maybe we would be able to at least catch a sunset while we were at the top and maybe it would give us some extra buffer time to travel from Bar Harbor, ME to Gorham, NH since GPS said it would take approximately 4 hours.

We thought we would have enough time to grab breakfast in downtown Bar Harbor so we headed to the Two Cats Café, but saw a line going out the door. We didn’t even check to see how long the wait was and turned the car back around to start our journey to New Hampshire. I was kicking ourselves a little bit for having backtracked into town, but it probably only added an extra 20 minutes to the trip. Tom Googled for other breakfast restaurants as I drove and found a place called Martha’s Diner that was on our route in Ellsworth ME. It was in the corner of a strip mall and definitely looked like a place locals went too. Here too there was a line, but there was only one couple in front of us so we decided to wait. We only had to wait about 7 minutes before we were able to grab a table. We placed our order and thought we would be eating and out of there in no time. However, almost an hour went by before our food arrived. Thankfully it was delicious, but I started to feel the onset of poopy pants from myself for the morning not starting out quite right.

We got on the road and made our way across Maine stopping for gas just outside of Bangor. Gas was $3.49/gallon and it only took 9.5 gallons to fill up the Hyundai Elantra we are renting. We took I95 for a chunk of the journey and then got off and took a single lane highway the rest of the way. It appears that we are now past peak colors in this area. We are starting to see a lot more orange and rust dull colors versus the vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows. In a small town while still in Maine just before we crossed into New Hampshire, we came across a big sculpture of an old fashioned telephone. This seemed like a great place for a geocache so I pulled over. I checked my app and found there was an Adventure Lab cache near by, but since I’ve never done one of those types and I didn’t want to take the time to learn, we just took a picture and got back in the car. I don’t why this car gets stupid with connecting to my phone after traveling for a couple of hours, but when I got back in the car after taking the picture it would not re-connect. It is so frustrating not to have our map come up on the screen or be able to listen to Spotify as I had been. My feelings of minor poopy pants were increased to slightly more than minor after we couldn’t get it to work. I had been listening to a pod cast called “Dolly Parton’s America” that someone had recommended on Facebook, and was really enjoying it. It is a 9 part series and I had just started part 4 when the phone wouldn’t reconnect. We were only 30 minutes from our hotel on a straight shot to it, so I didn’t really need the GPS, but again just irritated.

We pulled into Mt. Madison Inn and Suites in Gorham, NH at 2:40p.m. Check-in technically wasn’t until 3:00, but I checked in anyway. He gave me our room key and asked that I just wait about 7 minutes for them to finish getting our room ready. We got into the room shortly before 3:00 and after going to the bathroom and dropping our luggage in the room we got back in the car to head to the Mt. Washington Cog Railway Base Station, which GPS showed was 38 minutes away. I don’t know why but when we got back in the car, the phone decided to connect and we once again had a working GPS on the car screen with working Spotify.

I followed the GPS and it had me turning off US 2 onto what seemed to be a side road. We didn’t see any signs letting us know that we are on the route to the Cog Railway and were wondering where the GPS was taking us to. Soon we were on a single lane gravel road heading into the White Mountain National Forest and we were really wondering if we would make it to the train on time and/or if we were even going in the right direction. I drove probably faster than I should have for that type of road, but I was really anxious that we would miss the train. It was a super pretty drive and if we had all the time in the world we surely would have stopped to take pictures. Instead Tom just grabbed some pictures sticking his phone out the window and snapping some shots as we drove. The trek through the forest was about 9 miles and we came out on HWY 302 which took us right to the Cog Railway parking lot. We parked the car at 3:47 and headed to the building when we heard the announcement that the 4:00 training was boarding. Holy crap, we made it just in the nick of time.

The cog railway (www.thecog.com) to the summit was built in 1869 and has been operating ever since. It is a 3 mile track up to the summit and the biodiesel train that we took goes a top speed of 5 MPH. The whole trip up took about 45 minutes and we heard the history and other interesting facts from the brake operator as we went. It was interesting to go past the 3 different climate zones and see the change in the landscape from tall trees, to short bush like trees, to all rock.

Once at the top we had about an hour to explore the observation deck and the immediate surrounding vicinity. We caught some views before some fog rolled in. I’m not sure what the exact temperature at the top was but it was quite a bit colder than anything we have felt on this trip thus far. I even broke out my hat and gloves. As our time was winding down I noticed that the sun had broken through the clouds and was providing a spectacular sunset. This is what I had imagined once we had booked the 4:00 train. We got some pictures, heard the train whistle, took a few more pictures and headed back to board the train for the descent. We still had enough daylight to check out the views on the way back down with it not getting super dark until we were back at the bottom. The museum was still open when we got back and we were able to walk through and check-it out.

We got back in the car and picked a place for dinner that was near our hotel and plugged it into the GPS. This time the GPS had us taking only major highways back (thank God because I would not want to do that shortcut drive through the forest in the dark!). We ate dinner at Road Hawg BBQ Swine Dining. I asked the waitress if I should get the 2 meat plate (pulled pork & ribs) or the fried chicken and she said the fried chicken, so that’s what I went with. It was ok. I felt the breading was bland and could have used some seasoning. Tom had their take on a Cuban sandwich and he said it was decent. Overall it was nothing amazing, but did the job of filling a space. For having minor poopiness throughout the day, it really did turn out ok. I feel very fortunate that we were able to take the last train of the day and season to the summit of Mt. Washington.

Stats of the Day:

Number of times I was anxious due to time constraints: 4
High Temperature while driving: 64 degrees (felt warm and gorgeous when we stopped at the telephone sculpture)
Low Temperature while driving: 45 degrees (way back from Mt. Washington)
Steps Taken: 4,312