Step by Step: Lessons I Learned Climbing Mount Washington

“I learn something every time I go into the mountains.” – Michael Kennedy

This past week my parents, two of my siblings, and I made our way to Gorham, New Hampshire, to the base of the tallest mountain in the Northeast at 6,288 feet tall. The second deadliest mountain in America. 
Mount Washington. 

Nestled in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Mount Washington stands base on the gound, top covered in cloud. It is a tourist attraction, but most tourists aren’t capable of making the climb to the summit.

I have spent many summer vacations at and around Mount Washington, normally consisting of little hikes to the first waterfall, and drives up the auto road to the summit. 

​But this time, we were summiting.

I woke up at six in the morning to get ready. The sun was hiding behind clouds, and mountains were looming all around us. 

We decided to hike the Tuckerman’s Ravine trail. My Dad says it’s the “classic” trail, and it brings you through a place that is a favorite of both of my parents - Tuckerman’s Ravine. 

​This hike was quite honestly the most physically challenging thing I have ever done (and my family does a LOT of hiking.) 

The trail is three stages of rocks, relatively flat paths covered with large rocks, craggy, step-like rocks that lead you through the ravine, then steep uphill fields of boulders. 

​But the purpose of this post isn’t to talk about the anatomy of a trail, but the things I learned on the trail. We were on the mountain for a total of 10 and a half hours, so I can safely say, I learned a lot. 

“Step follows step. Hope follows courage.” -  from The Two Princesses of Bamarre, by Gail Carson Levine

When you hike a mountain like Mount Washington, you have to be very careful of your footing, at every point you could trip and fall, sometimes to easily stand up and keep going, but, at other times, to injury, and even death. 

Each step matters. 

In fact, the only thing that matters is each step. 

When I was close to the summit, the fog hovering close around, my feet screaming, sometimes I would look up and see the steep rocky incline and mutter “Oh man,” under my breath. I didn’t know how I would ever make it that high. In those moments my Dad reminded me to just choose my next step. Place my foot on a rock, and pick the path of least resistance. I would make it there eventually, I didn’t need to worry about how, I just needed to step. 

In life, the same approach is necessary. We look out into the foggy abyss called our future and we wrestle with how we will get there. But all we need to worry about is taking the immediate next step. 

Often when we talk about “next steps” we are normally talking about big leaps, but I think next steps are smaller things, what is literally your next task? Passing math class? Okay, just worry about passing math class, don’t worry about your college calculus when right now you need to focus on Algebra. Do the work you need to do now and don’t worry about tomorrow.

​Step follows step. 

“What are men to rocks and mountains?” - from Pride and Prejudice​, by Jane Austen

I had always wanted to climb Mount Washington, it was like a “sometime” thing. But my sister, (who I mentioned in Backpacking Musings) loves hiking, camping, and nature - so, because of her, my “sometime” became now. 
    And honestly, I was hiking for her and my brother. I didn’t want to miss out, but I also didn’t really want to do it. 
    In the course of summiting, I fell behind, I was worrying to my dad about catching up and apologizing for slowing him down. That’s when he said that it wasn’t anyone else I was competing against to get up the mountain, I was only competing against my own body and the mountain. 

My dad (who’s summited the mountain four times, and hiked different parts of it a number of other times) likes to say that when hiking Mount Washington, everyone hits their wall at a different time. Because of that, there is no point in comparing yourself. 

​Isn’t it the same way in life? We shouldn’t be competing against others, we are only competing against the struggles of our lives. We all face our challenges at different times, and someone ne else’s success doesn’t mean our failure. We need to take our focus from others and turn our focus onto the mountain we are climbing. We don’t need to get so caught up in racing that we fall off the mountain.
    
​Plus, God made us each individually with our own sets of skills, the plans he has for you are different than the plans he has for me.

Once we reached the summit, we stayed for a little while. The summit of Mount Washington is unique in the fact that it has a visitor center, a weather station, three gift shops, a lodge, and a restaurant at the top. This is because many people drive up the auto road, ride the train up the mountain, or after climbing up realize that they have no energy to make it back down. I’m sure those who drive up the mountain appreciate it, what with the wind and the wet that surrounds the entire summit, but as a hiker, drenched, chilled, sweaty, and exhausted, I appreciated it even more. 
  
​The jubilee of reaching the top only lasted for a short while, for an hour later, we had to make our descent. 

For me, the way down was easier, when you walk downhill you use different muscles than you use when you go uphill. 
    
As we were going down the rocks we were greeted with a beautiful thing - the fog had begun to clear up, and we could see the rock fields and the ravine clearly. It looked like something out of Lord of The Rings or Narnia. 
    
It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, that ravine, with dozens of waterfalls flowing down it, a lodge, barely visible on the other side. 
    
​I took some pictures to try and capture it for you, but they truly don’t do it justice. I guess you’ll have to go see it yourself and hope for a clear day. 

Tuckerman's Ravine

The view from Hermit Lake Lodge ( a moment of appreciation for that name!)

You seriously cannot tell me that this does not look like it's from a fantasy film.

This brings me to the final thing, it’s not a new revelation, my blog essentially revolves around this concept - but it is this - in the middle of the struggles, in the middle of our climb so to speak, if we take a moment to look up, we can see beauty. Beauty is the balm to suffering, beauty is God’s gift to us, each and every day. 
  
 In the mountains of life, the trials we all face, take things step by step, and don’t compare yourself to someone else. Never forget to stop and see the beauty all around. 
    
On this hike I learned one other thing, I am stronger than I think. If I could hike that mammoth mountain, what else can I do? My limitations were the things I told myself, and I ended up proving that I was stronger.

And guess what? So are you.
    
​So climb your mountain, I can’t wait to hear about your adventure!

Belle Thomas

.​Belle is the writer behind An Old Fashioned Girl. She is passionate about Jesus, classic literature, and living a beautiful life.