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The Pinnacle is one of those routes that every aspiring alpinist in the Northeast has heard about. It’s Mount Washington’s magnum opus of ice climbs—the apex of moderate ice climbing on big George himself. I hadn’t been ice climbing in a few years, in fact, since the last time I climbed with Dan, my partner for the day.
Being a Colorado hardo now, Dan wanted to get up for an alpine start but I was adamant that we were in New England, not Colorado, and given the favorable temps and our likely speed, a 7:30ish start would suffice.
We took off on the Tuckerman Ravine Trail right around 7:45 and made it up the well packed but annoying trail. Plenty of people had made boot prints in the snow during the last thaw, causing it to be rutted. Nonetheless, once we turned off on the Huntington Fire Road rather than the trail proper which is my preferred route in winter.
We were absolutely flying and passed multiple parties on the way up. Only a handful of them were doing Pinnacle, but we wanted to be the first ones on the route. We were roped up around an hour 45 after starting. Unfortunately, another group was able to get on before us, but we felt okay having them go because the leader was a guide out west and he was climbing fast. They took the left side of the route and we took the right side.
The ice was fat and the temperature was perfect. It wasn’t too cold, but not warm enough to cause any melting. Our plan was to do the climb in two long pitches using my 80 meter rope. Dan took the first lead and climbed the entire length of the rope.
Pinnacle Gully follows the obvious gully just to the right of the Northeast Ridge of the Pinnacle, which is where I climbed earlier in the summer. It’s a spectacular formation, and though I had a minor bout of screaming barfies, I was happy to be alive and enjoying one of my life list climbs.
I took the second pitch. It was the first time I had led ice in quite a while, but it felt so so natural. This was the first time I had ever sharpened my tools and crampons, so I was riding high when I got sticks into the ice on the first swing.
Under an hour after starting, I topped out in the gully and belayed Dan up on a v-thread anchor. This area is prone to avalanches, but we made sure to exercise caution. Moreover, the avy danger was low so we weren’t terribly worried about it. Just to be safe, I put Dan on belay from my anchor to run out the last snow climb to the top of the route. I followed up on a hip belay. Overall, the climb itself took us about an hour and fifteen minutes including the final snow climb. Despite the effort and long approach, it was well worth the effort!
To close out the day, we had a big objective: summit Washington! The wind was a-howling and the snow was serene—it was windblown and icy, but good enough for crampons without worrying about slipping. We headed straight up past the Alpine Garden and toward the Cog Railway where we tagged the summit promptly thereafter.
The views were as stunning as you can ever get up in the Presidentials.
We didn’t spend too long in the howling 40+ mile per hour winds, so we took the Tuckerman Trail toward Lion Head. It was super steep and very annoying to descend with crampons, but putting on microspikes would have been an annoyance in the cold and wind.
We passed a number of parties on the way down and got stuck in a bottleneck where people were roped up and being lowered down by guides. It was an interesting phenomenon but if you’re not well versed in down climbing it definitely made sense.
Back at the car, we reveled in our amazing experience on the Pinnacle and got a winter summit of Washington to boot! I’d love to do the route again some day, perhaps with a ski descent, which has been a goal of mine for years!
Total Time: ~8 hoursTotal Distance: 9+ miles (roughly, stopped the GPS during the climb) Total Elevation Gain: ~4700 feet (roughly, stopped the GPS during the climb)
GPS Track
