I used to scoff when I’d see a car donning a “This car climbed Mount Washington” bumper sticker, or a truck saying the same for its vehicle type. Please, I thought, you drove up? Well good for you. I climbed that bad boy and did it multiple times. Talk to me when you can use your own two feet to get up the mountain.
But this week, that all changed. Because this week I drove the Mount Washington Auto Road and white-knuckled my way for eight miles up to the summit. I was serving as a checkpoint manager for my daughter’s first solo traverse of the Presidential Range, and I have to tell you, I’m not sure which was scarier: worrying about her safety as she ventured into the wilderness by herself or driving up the godforsaken, hair-raising, panic-inducing, most harrowing road I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Who designed this thing? Where are the guardrails? How come there’s not enough room for two cars in some spots? How come they didn’t make me sign a waiver?
Looking back down the Mount Washington Auto Road — Get away from the edge, dude!
As I drove up 6,287 feet of mountain, I struggled to find the edges of the road at times. The over-sized hood of my big stupid truck obscured my view as I managed the steep pitch, and for the thousandth time I chided myself for having not traded it in yet. The auto road is much better suited for a smaller truck or an Outback or something like that. Not a big dumb GMC Sierra. I had to come to a full stop several times for fear that one of my wheels would slip off the side of the road and send me hurtling two or three thousand feet down the mountainside. Before I even completed the drive I thought: Never again. Never do I want to do this drive again, and never NEVER do I want to do it in my truck.
Did I shake a couple times? You bet I did. And I’m not even afraid of heights. I’ve climbed hundreds of cliffs and have no problem when I’m standing on my own two feet, but being attached to a hunk of iron that I could lose control of if it went just one foot in the wrong direction, was a totally different story. I actually took off my seatbelt because it occurred to me that should the truck indeed fly off the mountain, my only chance would be to jump out and grab the top of a spruce tree. Strange what we rationalize as reasonable when faced with an unreasonable demise.
After I reached the summit, I tried to commiserate with another gentleman getting out of his car, to see if he too, thought that drive was, well, scary as hell. Much to my chagrin, he shrugged his shoulders and asked in a southern accent, “You ever drive the Beartooth Highway in Wyoming?”
“No,” I replied.
“Well, that’s twice as long and scarier than that. Just wait until we go back down. That’s the fun part.”
I was duly impressed by his machismo—at least at the time. But since then, I’ve googled the heck out of the so-called Beartooth Highway, and while it does look intimidating, you know what it has at all of the scariest spots? Guardrails! If you weave a few inches the wrong way, there’s a little bumper that can redirect you back to safety. This is not the case on the Mount Washington Auto Road. One mistake there and unless this is the year 2078 and your vehicle can spontaneously sprout wings, or has an ejection seat with a parachute, that’s all she wrote. So, I’m calling BULL on Mr. Beartooth Highway man. Until I see the Beartooth in person, nothing could convince me that there is a scarier road than the Mount Washington Auto Road to drive.
You may be looking at the mountains in this photo, but all I was seeing was how close I was to the edge.
To meet up with my daughter, I happily used my two feet to climb over Mount Clay and wait for her in the col between Mount Jefferson and Clay. Once we were reunited, we then returned to Mount Washington, had some lunch, and parted ways once more: my daughter to continue her traverse and me to descend the road of nightmares. But going down was a little less scary, because at least I could see where I was going a bit more clearly. Still, it wasn’t easy.
Signs are posted along the road advising you to drive in low gear on your way down and pull over a few times to rest your brakes. This is sound advice that you should definitely listen to if you ever find yourself crazy enough to try this drive. Because of the size of my truck, at one point my brakes slipped, and I needed to pump them to stop the momentum of the truck. I wasn’t even riding the brakes or using them that much, so it wasn’t like I was wearing them down, but the significant degree of the slope, combined with gravity pulling down on a 5400-pound vehicle, was too much for my brakes to bear. I immediately pulled over to give my truck, and my senses, a rest. What if the brakes didn’t catch again and I went right over the edge?
Going down is easier, as long as your brakes work.
Since I’m sitting here writing, I obviously survived the day and didn’t go hurtling off a cliff. But I can tell you that there are a couple of things I’ll be doing from this day forward. One is that I will never, ever, make fun of the “This car climbed Mount Washington” folks ever again. Never ever. These people are badasses with nerves of steel and ice in their veins, and are exactly the type of people who should be leading our caravans of survival if there’s ever a nuclear holocaust.
The second is that I will definitely be downsizing my truck next month. The only reason I have it is because it was the smallest one I could get that would accommodate my whole family, but now that they are getting older and we rarely all drive together anymore, there’s no reason to keep it. It’s much more important that I be able to see over the hood of the car if, God forbid, I ever find myself on the Mount Washington Auto Road again. Or, perhaps, the Beartooth Highway.
We think of large vehicles as something that makes us feel a little safer, maybe even a little braver, on the open road. But I can now confidently say that I have seen a road that flips the script on such a notion, and I’m ready for something smaller with a bit more agility. A truck with some better visibility if I ever find myself inching up a mountain pass again and perhaps a little easier to jump out if I’m about to go over a cliff. And maybe, if the dealerships are now offering such accessories, I can get one with an ejection seat and a parachute.