NYT story on the mighty Mt. Washington:
Our destination on this cloudy mid-December morning was the top of Mount Washington in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire. At 6,288 feet, Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeast. Thousands of hikers make the ascent in warmer months, most often starting, as we did, at the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Pinkham Notch Visitor Center on the east side of Mount Washington. In winter, the four-mile hike to the summit, which gains about 1,000 feet of elevation with each mile, attracts a hardier lot.But it’s not the height or the steepness of the mountain that impresses most people — it’s the weather. The mountain has a long and infamous reputation: Hurricane-force gusts are typically recorded several times a week in winter, with the winds topping 100 miles an hour at least weekly. In 1934, the Mount Washington Observatory measured the fastest wind speed recorded on the earth’s surface, a stunning 231 m.p.h.