Солтүстік-Шығыс АҚШ-тың ең биік тауы

Highest mountain in Northeastern United States

Mount Washington, also known as Agiocochook, is an ultra prominent mountain in the state of New Hampshire. It is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at 6288.2 feet (1917 m) and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, the Mount Washington Observatory recorded a windspeed of at the summit, the world record from 1934 until 1996. Mount Washington still holds the record for highest measured wind speed not associated with a tornado or tropical cyclone. The mountain is located in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, in Coös County, New Hampshire. The mountain is in several unincorporated townships, with the summit in the township of Sargent's Purchase. While nearly the whole mountain is in the White Mountain National Forest, an area of surrounding and including the summit is designated as Mount Washington State Park. The Mount Washington Cog Railway ascends the western slope of the mountain, and the Mount Washington Auto Road climbs to the summit from the east. The mountain is visited by hikers from various approaches, including the Appalachian Trail, which traverses the summit. Other common activities include glider flying, backcountry skiing, and annual cycle and running races such as the Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb and Road Race.

Before European settlers arrived in the region, the mountain was known by various indigenous peoples as Kodaak Wadjo ("the top is so hidden" or "summit of the highest mountain") or Agiochook or Agiocochook ("the place of the Great Spirit" or "the place of the Concealed One"). The Algonquians called the summit Waumbik, "white rocks". The Abenaki people inhabiting the region at the time of European contact believed that the tops of mountains were the dwelling place of the gods and did not climb them out of religious deference to their sanctity. In 1642, Darby Field claimed to have made the first ascent of Mount Washington. Field climbed the mountain in June of that year to demonstrate to the Abenaki chief Passaconaway that the Europeans bargaining for tribal land were not subject to the gods believed to inhabit the summit, a primarily political move that facilitated colonists' northern expansion. Field again summited Agiocochook in October 1642 on an early surveying expedition that created maps of land as far as Maine, which allowed people from the Massachusetts colony to identify arable coastal areas. In 1819, the Crawford Path was established from Crawford Notch to the summit. It is the oldest continuously maintained hiking path in the United States. Abel Crawford led a group that included several Harvard students on the first recorded ascent of the path on September 10, 1819. Among them were Samuel Joseph May, George B. Emerson, Samuel E. Sewall, Caleb Cushing, Joseph Coolidge, William Ware and Joseph G. Moody. On August 31, 1821, Eliza, Harriet, and Abigail Austin, three sisters from Jefferson, New Hampshire, became the first White women to set foot atop Mount Washington. This was likely the first significant mountain to be climbed by any Euro American females in the United States. For forty years, until 1917, an intermittent daily newspaper, called Among the Clouds, was published by Henry M. Burt at the summit each summer. In 2011 and 2012, Orlando, Florida–based CNL Financial Group, which at the time operated the Mount Washington Hotel at the foot of the mountain, trademarked the "Mount Washington" name when used with a resort or hotel. CNL officials said they were directing their efforts only against hotels and not the numerous businesses in the area that use the name. CNL's application at the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office seeks registration of the trademark "Mount Washington" for any retail service, any restaurant service, and any entertainment service.

Due in part to its high prominence, to its situation at the confluence of two major storm tracks, and to the north–south orientation of the Presidential Range ridgeline, which it crowns, Mount Washington receives high levels of precipitation, averaging an equivalent of of rain per year, with a record high for a calendar year of in 1969 and a low of in 1979. Monthly precipitation has ranged from in October 1947 to in October 2005. Alpine Gardens drops off precipitously into two prominent glacial cirques. Craggy Huntington Ravine offers rock and ice climbing in an alpine setting. More rounded Tuckerman Ravine is New England's best known site for spring back country skiing as late as June and then a scenic hiking route. South of the summit lies a second and larger alpine plateau, Bigelow Lawn, at 5000 feet (1524 m) to 5500 feet (1676 m) elevation. Satellite summit Boott Spur and then the Montalban Ridge including Mount Isolation and Mount Davis extend south from it, while the higher Southern Presidentials—Mounts Monroe, Franklin, Eisenhower, Pierce, Jackson and Webster—extend southwest to Crawford Notch. Oakes Gulf separates the two high ridges.

The mountain is part of a popular hiking area, with the Appalachian Trail traversing below the summit past one of the Appalachian Mountain Club's eight mountain huts, the Lakes of the Clouds Hut, located on one of the mountain's shoulders. Winter recreation includes Tuckerman Ravine, famous for its Memorial Day skiing and its 50 degree slopes. The ravine is notorious for its avalanches, of which about 100 are recorded every year, and which have killed six people since 1849. Scores of hikers have died on the mountain in all seasons, due to harsh and rapidly changing conditions, inadequate equipment, and failure to plan for the wide variety of conditions that can occur above tree line. The weather at Mount Washington has made it a site for glider flying. In 2005, it was recognized as the 14th National Landmark of Soaring.

The most common hiking trail approach to the summit is via the 4.1 mile (7 km) Tuckerman Ravine Trail. It starts at the Pinkham Notch camp area and gains 4280 feet (1305 m), leading straight up the bowl of Tuckerman Ravine via a series of steep rock steps that afford views of the ravine and across the notch to Wildcat Mountain. Fatalities have occurred on the trail, both from ski accidents and hypothermia. Water bottles may be refilled at the base of the bowl 2.1 mile (3 km) up the trail at a well pump near the Hermit Lake Shelters, which offers snacks, toilets and shelter. At the summit is a center with a museum, gift shop, observation area, cafeteria, and the Mount Washington Observatory. Other routes up the eastern slopes of the mountain include the Lion Head, Boott Spur, Huntington Ravine and Nelson Crag trails, as well as the Great Gulf Trail ascending from the northeast. Routes from the western slopes include the Ammonoosuc Ravine and Jewell trails and the Crawford Path and Gulfside Trail (coincident with the Appalachian Trail from the southwest and from the north, respectively). There are many differences between climbing Mount Washington in summer and climbing it in winter. There are no public facilities on the summit in winter. In the winter months, the most common route is the Lion Head Winter Route, which begins on the Tuckerman Ravine Trail but then turns north to ascend up to Lion Head at elevation 5033 feet (1534 m). The winter route variation is recommended to help climbers avoid avalanche danger. Exactly where the route turns from the Tuckerman Ravine Trail depends on the snow conditions. If the amount of snowfall has not been significant, the Lion Head Summer Route may be open. After hiking 2.3 mile (4 km) from the visitor center in Pinkham Notch, the trail will take a right turn onto the Lion Head Summer Route. If there has been enough snow accumulation on the summer Lion Head Trail, the Forest Service will open the Lion Head Winter Route, which turns off after approximately 1.7 mile (3 km). It uses a Marsh rack system and was the first successful rack railway in the US.

Every June, the mountain is the site of the Mount Washington Road Race, an event that attracts hundreds of runners. In August the Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb, a bicycle race, takes place along the same route as the road race. The hillclimb's notable contestants include former Tour de France contender Tyler Hamilton. On August 7, 1932, Raymond E. Welch became the first one legged man to climb Mount Washington. An official race was held and open only to one legged people. Mr. Welch climbed the "Jacob's Ladder" route and descended via the carriage road. At the time of his climb, he was the station agent for the Boston & Maine Railroad in Northumberland, New Hampshire. In 2014 EVSR created by Entropy Racing was the first electric car to compete at Mt. Washington with an official time for driver Tim O'Neil of seven minutes and 28.92 seconds.

Tuckerman Ravine, a glacial cirque on the mountain's southeast side, is a popular backcountry skiing destination, attracting tens of thousands of skiers to the mountain each year. Skiers have skied down the headwall since 1931, first by two Dartmouth students, John Carleton and Charles Proctor, who were quickly followed by a group from Harvard who skied the headwall from the summit of Mount Washington for the first time. The ravine soon became an important site for extreme skiing in New England. The mountain hosted the first giant slalom race in the United States in 1937, the Franklin Edson Memorial Race.

Due to its status as the highest elevation in the northeast United States, the top of the mountain is a popular site for stations that require transmission ranges over a broad territory, but which operate on frequencies that are generally limited to line of sight coverage. In 2003, it was reported that the summit was the site used "for three commercial radio stations and dozens of state, federal and private agencies, including the state police". Use of the mountain summit as a transmitter site dates to the 1930s. At this time investigations were begun into establishing radio stations broadcasting on "Very High Frequency" (VHF) assignments above 30 MHz. Reception of stations operating on these frequencies tended to be limited to line of sight distances, so operating from the top of Mount Washington was ideal for providing maximum coverage. As of 1938 it was reported that at least five experimental stations were located on the mountain. The most prominent of the early experimental stations was W1XER, originally an "Apex" radio station licensed to the Yankee Network, that was moved from Boston to the mountain in 1937, and initially used to relay meteorological information from the weather observatory. With the aid of Edwin H. Armstrong, the station was converted from an AM transmitter into an FM broadcasting station, although the conversion process turned out to be an arduous undertaking, and W1XER did not start broadcast programming on a regular schedule until December 19, 1940. This station's facilities included construction of the original broadcast tower, the Yankee Building housing the crew and transmitter equipment, and the first power house building. Commercial broadcasting commenced on April 5, 1941, initially with the call sign W39B. Effective November 1, 1943 the station call sign was changed to WMTW, and in late 1946 the call letters were changed again, to WMNE. WMNE ceased operations in late 1948, due to excessive maintenance costs, and concern that a mandatory frequency change to the new FM "high band" would cause an unacceptable decrease in transmission range. In 1954 WMTW, channel 8, licensed to Poland Spring, Maine, constructed a TV tower and transmitter and began operations from the mountain, including local forecasts by (now retired) WMTW transmitter engineer Marty Engstrom. In its first decades, WMTW served as the ABC Network affiliate for the Portland, Burlington, Montreal and Sherbrooke television markets, thanks to its wide coverage area. This station relocated its transmitter away from the mountain in 2002, due to concerns that a mandated switch from analog to digital transmissions would result in insufficient coverage if the transmitter remained at the mountaintop. There are currently two FM stations located at the mountain. 1958 saw the construction of WMTW FM 94.9 MHz (now WHOM). A second station, WMOU (now WPKQ), moved to the summit in 1987, installing transmitters in the Yankee building and constructing a new broadcast tower behind the building, which is the tallest structure on the summit. WHOM and WMTW TV shared a transmitter building, which also housed the generators used to supply electrical power to the various facilities atop the mountain. However, on February 9, 2003, a major fire broke out in the generator room of the transmitter building, which had become the property of the state only a year earlier when WMTW left the summit. The fire destroyed the building, including WHOM's transmitters as well as the summit's main generators, and also spread to the adjacent Old Yankee Power House building, which housed the emergency generator, destroying that building also and disrupting all power to the summit. Temporary generators had to be transported up the mountain to restore power to the observatory and to the Yankee building, which houses important public safety communications equipment. A makeshift generator room was constructed underneath the canopy of the Sherman Adams building across from the public entrance to replace the destroyed buildings. The makeshift generator room was later made permanent when power cables were installed in 2009, delivering grid power to the summit for the first time. The original Armstrong tower still stands today. The Yankee Building also remains and continues to serve as a communications facility, housing equipment for numerous tenants including cellular telephone providers and public safety agencies. The old sign from the destroyed Old Yankee Power House building was placed above the doorway to the new generator room. WHOM subsequently built a new transmitter building on the site of the old power building, and also installed a new standby antenna on the Armstrong tower. (For the first time since 1948, the Armstrong tower was used for broadcasts.) The National Weather Service (NWS) forecast office in Gray, Maine, operates NOAA Weather Radio station KZZ41 on 162.5 MHz from the summit of Mount Washington. The NWS coverage map indicates that it can be heard throughout most of New Hampshire, western Maine, northeast Vermont, and portions of southern Canada. During very clear conditions, KZZ41 has the potential to reach the majority of northern Massachusetts (including some northern areas of Greater Boston and much of the North Shore) as well as the majority of Vermont and Maine. In June 2008, the possibility of television returning to Mount Washington arose, with the filing by New Hampshire Public Television to move WLED TV from its current location near Littleton to the old WMTW mast on top.

As of 2019, more than 161 people had died in the Presidential range, since record keeping began in 1849. Author Nicholas Howe has detailed many of the fatalities on this mountain in his book Not Without Peril published in 2000 and updated in 2009. The foreword to the 2009 edition states that many of the deaths over the past 150 years can be attributed to poor planning and lack of understanding of "the difference in weather between Boston and the mountains. The latter are farther north, farther inland and much higher than the city." William Buckingham Curtis, often posthumously called "the father of American amateur athletics", died from exhaustion on June 30, 1900, near Lakes of the Clouds Hut during a summer snowstorm.

Mount Washington has been the subject of several famous paintings, part of a New England school of art known as White Mountain art. Inspired by the Hudson River School of landscape painting, a number of artists during the Victorian era ventured into the White Mountains in search of natural subjects. Train service in the area spurred increased tourism and the construction of the Glen House where Albert Bierstadt and his photographer brother (Bierstadt Brothers) stayed. John P. Soule, John B. Heywood and the Kilburn Brothers also produced stereographic images of scenery in the area.