My name is Julio Del Sesto.

I'm a journalism professor, a media producer and a musician.

And this is my friend and world traveler, Sparky Von Plinsky.

Yeah, that's his real name and it's fun to say.

Join us as we visit some of New Hampshire's special places and meet the people that bring them to life.

[music playing] It looks big from up close.

Yeah.

I mean, in the end, it's just hiking, right?

Just one foot in front of the other.

As long as they don't have to carry me down, we'll be good.

As long as they does not include me, we will be good.

Because if I have to choose between you and dinner, I'm thinking dinner is going to win, my friend.

Thanks.

No problem.

They do call it the most dangerous small mountain in the world though.

[laughing] Come on, if they call it that, it's probably just like a tourist thing.

It's probably not that dangerous.

Though I am a little bit concerned about those clouds rolling in.

That makes me feel a little better.

You're welcome.

Mount Washington has an allure to it that sometimes escapes description.

There's something special about that mountain that really captures people's imagination and awe.

The mountain has personalities every single day.

Sometimes it might be happy and calm and really sunny, and then the next day, it might be angry and ferocious and blowing those 100 mile per hour winds.

It has really quick mood swings from day to day, or even hour to hour, and it keeps you in a whirlwind of adventure while you're up there.

I would say Mount Washington is somewhat akin to a cantankerous old man.

Its ire will get up and it will get angry and it'll let you know.

It's a little tough to deal with at times but the reward far outweighs those moments where it pushes you and challenges you.

I could describe Mount Washington as a wise old man that just kind of accepts life [laughing] the way it is.

And I feel like he has a marriage-- a long-term standing marriage-- with Mother Nature.

And it's kind of like this old bickering couple.

Sometimes they have really nice days, and sometimes she gets really mad at him and the weather just goes nuts.

And he just takes it because he has to.

[laughing] It's rough hiking on these rocks.

Yeah, probably won't be too much longer on the rocks though.

Well, going to go all the way up the mountain, right?

All right, fine.

Maybe it will be.

Oh, man.

I got this shiny material on this rock.

I wonder if that's mica schist.

It's where the White Mountains get their name-- because it sparkles in the sunlight.

That's pretty sweet.

It does sparkle too.

Let's keep walking.

Now let's check out these cliffs up here.

Sounds good.

That thing is heavy.

Mount Washington is an amazing place that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year to it.

I think it's just one of those places that people have special bonds with.

Oh man, I tell you what-- this place is something else.

Holy cow.

Funny, I think we kind of take this stuff for granted.

I mean, it took how many millions of years for this to happen.

You know, we look at it for a few minutes, take a selfie and move on.

Yeah.

When we first get to the mountain, it was like meeting a celebrity.

We were so excited.

We had seen pictures of it, driven by it.

I never actually set foot on it and when we did, it was like this living, breathing thing.

Did you leave your backpack in the car?

Come on, the mountain's not that big.

6,000 feet is a long way up.

The lower hiking trails are nice and smooth and they have these little waterfalls and these nice wooden bridges, but by the time you realize how difficult it actually gets, it's kind of too late.

The trail-- it can be very misleading at the very beginning.

People will see this dirt and a little bit of rocks and these little streams off the side like, oh, this is going to be a nice meander through the woods with some uphill.

And it's not a very tall mountain.

It's only 6,000 feet.

It'll be fine.

We'll be done in a couple hours and then about maybe a mile into the trail, like, this is getting really steep.

Like, I didn't expect this.

It's not easy.

[laughing] No trail up this mountain is easy.

So yeah, Darby Field.

According to-- Darby Field was the first European to climb Mount Washington, 90 years before George Washington was born.

Did they call it Mount Washington then?

[laughing] Yeah, he was omniscient.

I look slick.

I got this.

I got this.

[deep exhale] Yes!

[laughing] Well it didn't go exactly as planned.

But I will have you know that I did stick the landing to some extent.

It wasn't 10.0 but-- OK, so maybe it was like a 1.0.

But I did land it.

I had my doubts-- for sure-- that we were going to make it to the top.

I didn't necessarily doubt that we could do it.

I doubted that we could do it safely and in enough time to get back down.

We see a lot of people that are unprepared and people underestimate it a lot.

So we're on the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail.

Yeah?

And Ammonoosuc means small, narrow fishing place.

Looks like we're here.

Be careful there, Spark.

[music playing] [laughing] All right.

Pretty soon we're scrambling over boulders, trying to balance on logs, over rivers.

Miss Clark, I thought you said this was a nice, easy hike, man.

Your daughters are gymnasts, man.

You should be able to handle this.

[music playing] That was embarrassing.

Mount Washington has a dangerous edge to it that I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand or appreciate.

Hikers can find themselves under-prepared or not expecting the conditions.

OK.

So yeah, it's getting a steeper.

You have to respect Mount Washington.

And I didn't want to be one of those guys in the news who was like, OK, we got to the top.

And then we got lost on the way down and had to get rescued out and that's not why I wanted to go down in history.

It's crazy how quickly the weather changes.

It wasn't five minutes ago we had blue skies and I was sweating a little bit.

Trail is starting to get harder too.

Yeah.

I guess that's inevitable, when you've got to go up a 6,000-foot mountain.

You got this one, Spark?

Oh great, another log.

Even though it's a small mountain the differences in the weather conditions at separate elevations-- especially from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain-- can really catch people off guard.

It could be 60 degrees at the bottom-- 60, 70-- but it also could be below freezing at the summit.

You hear that noise?

It's probably me breathing.

I mean, yeah, there's that, but it sounds like a train or something.

From the mountain?

It's very easy to get lost and in fact, we did.

I'm kind of glad we did though.

This is hard work Yeah.

I blame you for this.

[music playing] [breathing heavily] [train moving] [train horn blowing] How are you guys today?

Welcome to the Cog Railway.

Thank you.

Two tickets please.

[music playing] This is going to be sweet.

This is going to be sweet, dude.

Get to ride a train.

All aboard!

[music playing] Aaah.

Oh, dude, this is nice.

It's comfortable.

[music playing] And I am glad we walked back down to get the train.

Yeah, I'll have to agree with you on that one.

And my feet definitely agree with you on that one.

[music playing] A lot of people found Sylvester Marsh crazy when he proposed this notion, and it was all born out of an experience he had on a hike and he wanted to harness the burgeoning tourism economy of the White Mountains by building an alternative to hiking-- a way to ascend the mountain that didn't involve having to get yourself there by means of your own two feet, should you not want to or be physically unable to.

And people thought that was not practical, possible, or-- even if he could pull it off engineering wise-- profitable.

And there are naysayers even now.

Even though we've been in existence for so long, they come here, they look at the track, they look at the ascent angle, and they say that's preposterous.

That's ridiculous.

That's insane.

Like how do you get a train to go up that?

I'm having a hard enough time getting my feet to go up that.

OK welcome to the Cog Railway, everybody.

My name is Terry.

You picked a beautiful day, by the way.

It's about 35 degrees up there.

100 mile views and hardly any wind, so almost a near perfect day.

Like I don't even know what straight up and down is anymore, right?

Yeah, you're looking out and it looks like the trees are crooked.

Looks like the icicles are crooked.

You swear that you're in a Dr. Seuss book and everything is growing slanted.

It's kind of good for perspective though.

It's like, OK, is everything else crooked or am I crooked?

It's probably-- it's probably me.

To be able to come to a place that has such a rich history and be able to connect with something that people were doing over 150 years ago and still do it today-- it's so much more than a shuttle to the top of Mount Washington.

It's actually the living history of 150 plus year old rail line.

It's a pretty scary thing.

You've got these steep inclines and the technology is 150 years old.

But when you meet the people that run the cog and the engineers, makes you feel a little bit better.

It's not any less scary but it helps.

And if you're not afraid of heights, what I'll ask you to do next is look out the left side of our coach, straight down.

That's called the Great Gulf over there.

It's like 3,000 feet straight down off the left side here.

Right there?

Right there.

Do they have to put the train right next to a 3,000-foot drop?

I'm going to keep looking to the summit, OK?

All right.

Suit yourself.

The thrill does not wear off.

You have a combination of a little bit of nervousness, excitement and hyper focus.

You get beyond tree line and you're unsheltered from the wind, so it will assault the train.

You can get rapidly changing conditions.

And from the base to the summit, you can have temp differentials that are close to 50 degrees at times.

There are some times where you have to let the weather win and there are other times where you go up in it and you give the guests an experience of, maybe you don't have a great view today but you're experiencing some of the most extreme conditions that you can venture into in the world.

It's thrilling.

Summit's right over there.

You think people will believe us if we tell them we hiked it?

We do have to actually walk from here to there.

So that is hiking.

And there's a little bit of an elevation.

Has a couple of steps up?

Yeah.

There's no way you'd be able to build a train up a mountain today, especially on protected lands.

But I'm glad it's there.

I think it gives people that otherwise wouldn't be able to get to the summit an opportunity to experience it.

All right, let's go.

We got a lot of hiking to do here.

[music playing] Oh my goodness.

[music playing] Let's go find this summit.

I think our ride is leaving.

[laughing] That's how we can get down somehow, right?

I think the fact that the summit is a state park, and is part of a very, very unique and special state park system, is something that the whole state can really take pride in.

And the top of Mount Washington is managed by our crew, at 24/7, 365 days a year.

We are responsible for really everything that happens and we are the main caretakers of the mountain.

There are all these entities that come together at the summit and the state park does an amazing job of managing those relationships and giving visitors this one cohesive summit experience.

Totally counts as a hike.

Yeah, I think I'm good.

Let's do this.

But it's definitely strenuous.

You know?

Totally.

[music playing] And I mean, there's the danger of getting distracted by the views and tripping over a rock.

The views really take your breath away.

Of course, that could have been the cold, or the wind, or the altitude.

Wow.

Oh, this is amazing.

At least we're hiking a little bit.

[music playing] Woo-hoo!

We made it.

All the way to the summit.

I'm exhausted.

It doesn't get a whole lot better than this.

It's kind of nice up here.

Hey, I'm taller than you.

That's the highest point for like 1,000 miles in any direction.

Kind of makes everything else feel small, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kind of makes me feel small.

6,288.76 feet, and was that from here from here?

Or is it from here?

Well-- I don't think that counts, does it?

Yeah, because I'm not climbing that.

No.

No, I'm staying the heck away from that.

I might eat off of it though.

Sparky really likes ice.

[crunching ice] Hey, that crunching is kind of killing the vibe up here, man.

[crunching ice] You chew with your mouth closed?

What?

I couldn't hear you.

It's getting windy.

Hey, you want to go check out the observatory?

Yeah, you think they'll let us in?

Maybe it's a little warmer in there.

They might let me in.

Come on now.

I'm leaving the ice outside.

[music playing] Maybe.

[music playing] I was really excited to get to the observatory.

I always wanted to visit since I was a kid.

We met with Ryan who's one of the observers and he offered to bring us inside and give us a tour.

I guess I didn't know any better.

What does it get like-- really-- up here?

It can get pretty extreme.

We can see gusts over 100 miles per hour one out of every four days of the month.

So it can be pretty windy up here.

But it's not just the winds that people have to worry about though.

It can also get fairly cold up here.

So on the extreme end, we've been as low as 47 below Fahrenheit, but when you factor in that wind, it can get really dangerously cold because then you have the windchill factor.

And that can strip away your heat really quickly and cause hypothermia or frostbite, if you're not prepared.

You see on the back of the Tip-Top House, there's that ice coating that is coming off sideways.

I assume that's because of the wind.

What that is called is rime ice and what it actually does is forms into the wind.

What it is, essentially, is frozen fog.

So fog is made up of millions of little nanoscale water droplets until they hit a surface and cause it to freeze instantly.

And on really extreme and really moist conditions, you can see those rime ice feathers growing up to three, five, sometimes even upwards of 10 feet up here.

Mount Washington is a pretty small mountain but it has a very deadly reputation.

The weather has a lot to do with that.

The weather that we experience on the summit of Mount Washington is primarily due to the amount of low pressure systems that we see.

We commonly see storms coming up the eastern seaboard or up the Ohio River Valley or across from the Great Lakes, so pretty much any storm that moves through the lower 48 is going to make its way across New England at some point.

It was really cool to get in there and see the spiral graphs and all these other different measuring instruments that they'd basically been using for 90 years to measure some of the most extreme weather on Earth.

This is the weather room.

So this is basically where most of our instrumentation is recording, as well as where we submit our observations.

Up on the tower-- which will take you to in a bit-- we have an instrument called the pitot tube anemometer.

And as wind is blowing past it, it's creating a differential pressure within the instrumentation.

And how much that differential pressure is will push the needle on this chart further away from the center.

So the further away from the center of this chart it is, the higher the wind speeds.

On a more extreme kind of day it might look something like this, where it's actually going off the chart because the winds are so gusty.

On this particular day, we registered a wind of 182 miles per hour.

So when we measured our 231 mile per hour wind, that was in 1934.

And the instrument that recorded that kind of worked similar to a three-cup anemometer, and as it was rotating was creating clicks.

And the observer at the time was listening to those amount of clicks and then calculating the wind speed.

They radio to a secondary observatory to make sure that they weren't over calculating anything.

There's so much that goes into this and it's all awesome.

I mean, you must have like top 10 best views from your desk of any place in the country.

Yeah.

When we give tours, we always like to say, and this is our office view.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

On a clear day, we can see five states and two countries.

So this is some pretty sophisticated equipment, but you tell us about this?

Yeah, that is Nimbus kitty's new toy-- a little mouse-- give him practice for catching the real ones.

So you have a cat in the observatory?

We do.

Yeah.

Really the whole reason for this trip was to meet Nimbus, the observatory cat.

We have a long history of cats, pretty much dating all the way back to 1932.

Right now, our current kitty is Nimbus.

Prior to him was Marty, and then we had Ninn and Inga and a whole slew of cats.

So is there a reason that started?

Yeah.

It's kind of twofold.

So one is rodent population reduction.

But it's also for company.

It's amazing how much of a difference having him up here, as a companion, is.

It just puts you in a happier mood.

And Ryan offered to take us up into the observatory tower, which is like a childhood dream.

And of course, Sparky's grace was on full display.

[grunting] Working-- oh, son of a-- You need a hand, bud?

He told me.

Oh.

Are you OK?

I had it.

No, I'm good.

I'm good.

Oh, nice.

And that's why you don't stand behind them.

Yes.

OK. We're the size of mini fridges, so they would have done some bad damage if you were standing there.

So it's not only the weather that's dangerous up here.

Yeah, you have to kind of be aware of your surroundings all the time.

Oh my goodness.

Wow that was cool.

That was cool.

So you have to come out here to de-ice the instrumentation?

Is that the right terminology?

Yep.

I'll grab some instruments real quick.

These are how we de-ice.

So it's an ice mallet that you would typically see on fishing boats and lobster ships around the area, and then crowbars.

So once an hour, we're coming out de-icing the antennas.

You can see the paint is all chipped.

That is because we are de-icing with the mallet and crowbar here.

The really high wind events are where it's really risky because you not only have the wind, but you also have objects that might be flying at you.

It can be a little bit daunting and tiring at times, but it is something that needs to be done for everything to operate correctly.

After we had our king of the world moment and enjoyed the view a little bit, we were able to get back down without Sparky hurting himself.

We could have talked with Ryan all day, but Sparky want to do some hiking.

And come to find out Crawford Path, which is the oldest maintained trail in the United States, and is part of the Appalachian Trail, is right at the top of the mountain.

Check this out.

It's the Appalachian Trail.

I've always wanted to hike that, or at least a part of it.

It goes across the top?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All the way down to Georgia, I think, in that direction.

We're not going that far.

No, no.

Let's try it.

All right.

[footsteps on dirt] You'll have to carry me out though.

[laughing] Fat chance.

Fulfill another lifelong dream-- get to hike the Appalachian Trail.

Good for you.

Well, at least one two thousandth of it.

That's probably enough for me anyway.

Yeah.

[music playing] Mount Washington gives you a view that is second to none.

That kind of hits you all at once.

Well, that and the cold.

They both hit you kind of at the same time-- a nice little one-two punch.

Need my skis for this.

[laughing] I don't think I'm that good a skier.

Matter of fact, I know I'm not that good a skier.

We got a little ways down before we realized we might not make it back up in time for the train.

[music playing] So of course we had to come back up.

You know, couldn't stay out there and play too long.

So start hiking back up and, predictably, that was somewhat more difficult than going down.

It's a good thing this path is nice and smooth and everything.

It's supposed to be a path-- Crawford Path.

It's a little misleading.

Path is nice and easy.

Well they don't call it the big rock pile for nothing.

We're hiking up from the Crawford Path.

We kind of hike down, we come back up and it's like, OK, this is kind of cool.

And I was like, all right this isn't so bad.

I can do this.

Oof!

[grunting] You all right?

Yeah, that was pretty slick.

That was graceful.

Yeah.

[laughing] It was cartoonish.

First thing that hit was my face right in the snow.

Oh, Sparky.

[music playing] I thought I'd be the one falling down the mountain.

They're really tough.

Yeah, little steep.

That's where you're supposed to carry me up the mountain.

I'm pretty sure there's not a spot where I'm going to carry you up the mountain.

I thought we agreed on that.

I don't think so.

We play that back but I'm pretty sure there was nothing there.

I think we'll have to check your contract.

It was a lot more difficult than I expected.

[music playing] Oh, sweet.

[music playing] Wow.

There's something to be said for having it be accessible to everybody.

They would never see this if it wasn't for the railway or the auto road.

What an amazing place.

This is.

If Mount Washington was undeveloped today, I don't think we would have a road built on it.

I don't think we would have a train on it.

I don't think we would have as many hiking trails on it.

One of the things that I've experienced, in working on Mount Washington and serving the public there, is sharing the experience with the people who come up here and knowing that, without some of these other outlets for them to be able to come to the top of Mount Washington, they would have never been able to get there.

And more people are able to experience that and create a bond with Mount Washington, with New Hampshire, with the White Mountains, and with the outdoors in general.

And for me, that's incredibly valuable.

We balance that outlet to provide outdoor recreation and for people to be able to visit-- to make it accessible-- with a protection of those natural features.

It's important to remember that we are having an impact on this mountain.

It's our responsibility to take care of these places, even as we allow, and even as we encourage, access.

It is extremely unique and we do need to protect that.

But it's also really important for people to be able to experience some of these natural wonders and do it in a safer way.

And most people come out, I think, understanding like, oh, this is really beautiful.

We should keep this cleaner and more pristine.

But I'm really glad I get to experience it.

You have to appreciate the special places and you have to identify them.

And it doesn't take much to say that Mount Washington is special.

I'm really grateful for the time that we had, people we met, things that we learned.

It was just an all around amazing experience.

That was amazing day.

This has been an amazing day.

[music playing] Wow.

[music playing] What time did you say the train was?

[music playing] What?

You don't want to know.

Sparky.

[laughing] Really?

I mean, I could lie to you.

It's not good.

You're killing me.

I might not be, but the mountain will.

Probably.

[laughing] So I guess we're walking.

At least we know the way, right?

Let's go.

Where should we go next?

I don't know Winnipesaukee, Kancamagus?

Those sound pretty cool, right?

I'll give you $5 if you could spell either one of those.

Sure.

It's W-I-- and a pesaukee.

It's not that hard.

Are there bears around here?

Yeah.

That makes me feel a lot better.

You're welcome.

[grunting] Topeka, Kansas.

Topeka, Kansas.

All right.

I'm totally sucking in my gut right now.

Oh, yeah.

I got used to that pose a long time ago.

But we look good.

Did you get that sweet jump?

Nice.

I think there's like a big noise up in the distance.

That was a stupid line.

A big noise.

[both laughing]