I flew to Montreal for a short, eight day holiday to visit my two brothers and hopefully take in a Canadiens playoff game and to climb Mt. Washington in the state of New Hampshire. Well my dear brother snagged us two pretty good seats for game four between the blue line and goal line and Les Habs won the game. So far so good for the holiday.


The next day, Friday, we left for four hour drive to the Mt. Washington. We crossed the border at Standstead into Vermont and then into New Hampshire. Friday was a beautiful day but the forecast for Saturday, climb day, was nasty. Mt Washington has the dubious distinction of having the worst weather in the world. The highest winds ever recored on earth were on Mt. Washington. They were measured at 374 KPH before the instrument exploded. There is an observation tower/ weather station on top of the mountain, manned 24/7 365 days a year. I have been following the weather station since Feb and the average winds have been over 50 MPH with a high hitting 96MPH a few weeks ago. Many, many people have died on Mt. Washington and even though it is only 6288 Ft. high it is not a mountain to be taken lightly. In my youth I made twelve attempts and summited only three times. I summited in 2005 and there was not a breath of wind.




The weather was perfect on the Friday we got there. I did some hikes to waterfalls in the White Mountain National Forest.




But alas, the forecast was spot on for Saturday. The winds were howling and the rains were coming down sideways. I checked the web cams on top of the mountain and it was a complete white out. The winds were 69.9 MPH and the temp. was 15.9 F. That was it. Months of planning down the tubes. I had bought some expensive gear that I was planning on testing against the famous Mt. Washington winds and maybe in my younger days I may still have tried, but with wind, rain and snow, no thanks. So we went antiquing. I love travel as well, so driving through some of these quaint New England towns, going through their quirky little shops is also a lot of fun. So it wasn`t a complete waste of time.




I know that there are a few ex pat Montrealers on CT, so here are a few shots of Old Montreal and the Old port and a few random shots

Not too sure Habs games and Vieux Montreal qualify for club tread trip reports but it was good to see shots from Mt. Washington (east coast version). I had to reluctantly cancel a spring ski trip to the White Mountains but am happy to see there isn't much snow left on the headwall.

Used to ski there every spring during university days in Montreal and the big bowl skiing is without comparison (east of the mississippi river at least) Always seemed like skiing Tucks was more about sunbathing than actually sliding down the mountain though.

Plenty of great hikes and Appalachian Mountain Club history make the area a really worthwhile visit if anyone's ever in that neck of the woods.

Growing up my family would often drive through upstate Vermont and New Hampshire (right past Mt. Washington actually) when going from Ontario to the Maritimes. It's such a nice drive with all the small towns, and very interesting scenery!