[engine chugging] [whistle blowing] Good morning.

I'm standing at the base station of the Mount Washington Cog Railway, about six miles off Route 302 and Bretton Woods.

I've come here today to ride one of the brand new biodiesel locomotives.

Now, you've got to reckon that is progress.

When I came here a few years ago, the locomotives were coal-fired only.

So, sit back and relax, because the next half-hour is one that you don't want to miss.

♪ Welcome to Windows to the Wild.

I'm Willem Lange.

We're presenting a series of programs that record the beauty, diversity, and character of northern New England.

Now, today, our adventure takes us up Mount Washington, past Lakes of the Clouds, to the top of Mount Monroe, which at 5,372 to 5,384 feet, is the fourth-highest mountain in New England.

Once we get there, we'll take in the views and come back down to the hut Lakes of the Clouds partake of a delicious supper, and then maybe just about dusk, tell a few ghost stories.

Now, why am I standing next to this engine?

Well, because it's the first of the biodiesel Cog Railway locomotives put into service.

And here to talk about it is Bob Trask, who's the train master, right?

Correct.

Of the Cog Railway?

Correct.

How long have you been here, Bob?

34 years.

My God!

You've got coal dust in your lungs.

Oh, yes, I do.

[laughing] But this is a career?

Yes.

That's great.

So tell me about this diesel engine.

Well, it's biodiesel.

And it's the first one we built in 2008.

And we built two more in 2009, and we're almost finished the fourth one right now.

Wow.

That's great.

And the bio actually only takes 40 minutes to get to the summit compared to the steamers.

That gives the customer an hour at the summit.

Oh, great.

And that was our biggest complaint we had up here with the people not getting enough time.

So this makes up the time, and the people enjoy staying at the summit longer.

You don't have to stop for water halfway up anymore.

Nope.

Nonstop.

That's great.

Now, how about fuel consumption?

16 gallons per trip, compared to a ton of coal.

Sounds cheaper.

A lot cheaper.

Great.

But I miss the black plume of smoke going up the mountain.

Oh, we still have steam as we run them at 9:00 in the morning, so.

Oh you do?

Yes we do.

You're going to keep them?

At this point, yes.

That's great.

You like these all right?

Yes.

Like you build them brand new from scratch?

Yes.

We build everything.

We build it right down here at our shop.

Is that right?

So you're not redoing the old ones and the diesel engines?

No.

These are all from scratch.

And we had a guy here who actually designed them, and then we built them right down at the shop during the winters.

Yeah.

And they aren’t tipped.

No, not like the steamers.

[chuckling] But everybody seems happy with them so far?

Yes.

Very happy.

That's great.

Well, thank you very much.

You're welcome.

I got to get on before they leave me behind.

Don't worry.

You're not going up with us?

No, I'm staying down here.

Wow, what a life you lead.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you, Robert.

You're welcome.

I'll see you again, I hope.

Have a good day.

I shall.

♪ All aboard!

♪ Since 1869, the Cog Railway has carried wide-eyed passengers three miles to the summit of Mount Washington.

The dream of a mountain- climbing railway began in 1852, when Sylvester Marsh got lost near the summit in a snowstorm.

Marsh was a native of Campton, New Hampshire, and he'd made his fortune in Chicago's meat-packing industry, and he was considered to be kind of a creative thinker.

So in the summer of 1866, con- struction of his railway began.

Now, it took over three summers, over 100 men, mostly of Irish and Italian immigrants.

And on July 3rd, 1869, that engine right there on your right was the first reported engine to go to the summit.

It took about 5.5 hours.

Now, we are in the 21st century, people.

We are on a John Deere biodiesel 600-horsepower engine.

It's going to roughly take us about eight and a half, nine hours to make it to the summit.

I am just joking.

It's going to roughly take us about 40, 45 minutes.

♪ A gentle rocking motion goes along with the Cog adventure.

With several trains on the track at one time, turn-offs are required to let others pass.

The first pass is at Waumbek, about a third of the way up the mountain.

The automatic hydraulic switch at Waumbek allows trains to rejoin the mainline tracks a quarter of a mile up the track.

♪ Mount Washington is supposed to have the worst weather in the world, and it may have.

The highest recorded wind speed here was 231 miles an hour in April of 1943.

The highest temperature ever on Mount Washington was 74 degrees.

The lowest?

-49.

And that does not include the wind chill factor.

Mount Washington at times can be a brute.

♪ All right.

We're now about to approach Jacob's Ladder.

Once again, feel free to stand up and try to lean forward.

♪ Jacob's Ladder is the most treacherous train trestle on the Cog Railway’s three miles of track.

There are a few reasons for this.

Jacob's Ladder sits 30 feet off the ground, makes a 30 degree turn to the left, and sits at a 37.41% grade.

This means for every 100 feet forward, we climb about 37.5 feet.

On Jacob’s Ladder, the front two seats of the coach are about 14 feet higher than the back two seats.

♪ Well, here we are.

Special unscheduled stop.

There.

Thank you, Tim.

Yes, sir.

Have a great day.

A pleasure.

I'll see you again, I hope.

I hope so too, sir.

Peace.

Have a great day.

Across the [Gulfside].

♪ When you ride on the Cog Railway, you come to appreciate that it is as enduring as it is unusual.

It’s a tradition kept alive by the men who run the engines and ride the brakes and maintain these powerful workhorses for decades to come.

Yeah!

Bye-bye.

♪ Well, now... Here's the trail here.

♪ Oh, I got a little way to go to Lakes of the Clouds.

But it's a lot cooler than it was down below.

♪ You see that guy running down the mountain?

Broke my heart.

I was doing that 55 years ago.

I was up on top here, and the train came up, and I bet somebody $20 I could race it down to the bottom and back up.

I got the 20.

Maybe I shouldn't have; I'd be running today.

Anyway, we're on the Westside Trail here.

The summit of Washington is above us a ways.

Gonna take this trail over to Lakes of the Clouds Hut and drop our packs there and go on up to Monroe.

Tomorrow, we’ll be coming back this way if the weather lets us do that.

So, I'm going to get going.

I'll see you along the way.

♪ We're at... 5,600 feet here, give or take a few.

And the summit that you can see up there, that high tower sticking up, is at 6,288.

So we're not too far below the summit about 600 feet.

We're not going to go to it today.

We're going to hike along the west side of the mountain.

♪ Well, it's a little bit breezy up here on the shoulder of Mount Washington.

The weather forecast was for gusts up to 55.

[chuckling] That's like a Sunday school picnic.

We were up here on January 30th of this year.

It was gusting up to 100, and it was 30 or 40 below zero.

I remember saying to myself, I wonder how long I could stand this.

I found out.

Roughly 15 seconds.

[laughing] This I could take all day.

This is beautiful.

You can see down behind me where we came from at the base of the mountain.

And you can see over here where we're headed, which is Mount Monroe and Lakes of the Clouds Hut.

♪ There goes our train back down the mountain.

Boy, those diesels are a lot faster than the old steam locomotives.

Smoother, too, and not quite so noisy.

What will they think of next?

It'll be electric by the time my kids get to be my age.

Here we go.

♪ Well, we're coming round the mountain here.

I can see lakes down below us.

Highest lakes in the United States of America east of the Mississippi.

That's very impressive.

And we're crossing a huge boulder flow here.

These are rocks that have been split up near the summit, up on this ridge, and they're slowly migrating downhill over the years.

Kind of an ultra-low-speed rock avalanche.

Well, I'm glad it's not going anywhere today, but you can see how the the trail people have filled this in here.

Otherwise it would be just like that to climb over.

But they have done a beautiful job of paving this, which makes it a lot smoother and nicer for old guys.

Thank you guys.

Now... we'll go on over to the next shoulder and then on down to the hut.

♪ Well, here's the junction of the Westside Trail with the old Crawford Path, which is the old main trail up Mount Washington all the way from Crawford Notch to the summit.

Nice to be here.

The wind is really picking up this afternoon.

Kind of brisk.

Oh, the clouds are flying past the summit really fast.

Well, still almost a mile down to the hut, so we'll probably take off and get on down there.

♪ Well, we made it!

At last.

Lakes of the Clouds Hut.

Now we’re going to drop our packs here, check in, have a little lunch, and then we'll tackle Monroe, which is only about 330 feet higher than we are.

But it's a good mile-loop.

It should be a good afternoon.

So let's go check in.

♪ Okay, I'm standing here out of the wind so you can hear me at all.

And, we're about to we've had a little lunch take off up Mount Monroe, about a mile or so up there.

I'm standing right outside my bedroom window, and, it's my nap time, but we're going to go climb.

We'll see you later.

♪ Oh, yeah.

♪ By God, this trail... doesn't make any bones about going up fast.

Most of it's a staircase.

Terrific.

But look how far I am above the hut already in only about ten minutes or so.

Very impressive.

And the view from here is fantastic.

♪ Woohoo!

How the wind is blowing.

[wind rippling] I haven't been here for, jeez, 40 years now.

The mountain hasn't changed a bit in all that time.

But I have, though.

Not it’s all- shattered rocks on top.

I'm asking myself the question, That wasn't as bad as you thought it would be, was it?

♪ There.

[wind rippling] Well, it's time to get out of this wind.

♪ It's pretty nice going here.

Shades of the old bridle path [that was here].

♪ On our way back to the hut on the old Crawford Path.

Hard to believe this used to be a bridle path.

Boy, some horses.

Of course, it wasn't as rough then.

Hadn't been eroded so much by 100-and-some years of hammering footsteps.

♪ Quite a day.

Beautiful.

♪ Sing with me, ♪ I'll sing with you.

♪ And so we shall sing together.

♪ So we shall sing together.

♪ Sing with me, I'll sing with you.

♪ And so we shall sing together.

♪ As we march along.

♪ For we are marching to Pretoria, ♪ Pretoria, Pretoria.

♪ We are marching to Pretoria, Pretoria, hoo-rah!

Yuh.

♪ We're almost back.

There's the welcome- looking roof of our cabin.

Been a nice day, but it's about time to go down, put my feet up for a bit.

Maybe I'll read a book, have supper, and then after supper, we'll come outside by the pond, and I've got a little ghost story for you kids.

[evil laughter] Here we go.

♪ ♪ [chatter] ♪ Well, night is falling over Lakes of the Clouds and Mount Washington up there, getting pretty dark.

And it seems like a pretty good time to talk about the spirits that inhabit this place.

As you probably know, spirits inhabit most high mountains.

As a matter of fact, anywhere you go in the world, the highest mountains, there are bodies all over the top of them.

K2, Everest, Aconcagua, Yerupajá, Pico de Orizaba, Kilimanjaro even there are bodies up there that are never brought down and whose spirits stay up there.

Now about 140 people have died on Mount Washington over the years.

One just last week, as a matter of fact, most of them from hypothermia and storms.

They get lost, disoriented, and then freeze to death.

Two men died right here where the hut is.

The hut is here because they died.

Just 110 years ago, two hikers from New York City, one of them 63 and one of them only 29 experienced hikers.

And you know from my saying that that something bad is going to happen.

It did.

They were headed for a meeting up on top of the mountain in the old stone summit house, and they ran into, first, rain, and then sleet.

And by the time they got here, they were in a snowstorm and never appeared at the top.

And they found them later, dead here.

One had died.

His partner had tried to cover him up with brush and then went for help, and he died a little farther up the slope.

So in response to that, there was a shelter built here about 110 years ago.

People began using it for camping, so, eventually, it got expanded into the hut you see behind us, which now holds 90 people.

And most nights, it's pretty filled up, as it is tonight.

But still, the spirits are here.

We don't know if it's those two men or who it is, but a story happened here some years ago of which there's some retelling.

In the wintertime, of course, the storms here are incredibly fierce.

And so to protect the hut, they put big old plank boards up over all the windows.

They shut it right up tight with shutters, and they padlocked the door with big, heavy padlocks.

Leave it for the winter.

Early in the spring, someone comes up, usually alone or used to come up alone to check it out and see what needed to be fixed and what tools they would need in the springtime.

Well, one year... a young hut-master named George we don't know his last name came up the mountain on snowshoes early in the season to check out the hut.

He got here.

As far as we know, everything was okay.

Opened the padlock, went inside, set his pack on the floor and his radio on the table, and he sat down to sort out his food supplies and the stuff he brought with him.

And he said, All of a sudden, I knew there was someone in the room with me.

I knew there couldn't be because no one else came in behind me.

The place was all boarded up and dark, but I knew there was someone in the room.

He turned around, and something moved in the shadows and disappeared.

He was terrified, and at that moment he looked over at one of the boarded-up windows, and in the window, between the glass and the shutter, was a horrible face staring at him through the window.

Just grimacing!

And he pulled back and looked, and the same face was in all the windows looking in at him.

Well, that night people called up on the radio to see how he was doing.

As usual, it was a regular call.

He didn't answer the radio.

They were a little nervous.

They tried later.

Still no answer.

So in the morning, 3 or 4 of them came up on snowshoes to see what was wrong, if anything.

Walked in, found his pack on the floor, found the radio on the table still turned on, but George wasn't there.

He was kind of a little guy, but, you know, feisty, pushy.

He was nowhere to be found.

They looked all around.

They called his name.

And finally someone heard whimpering coming out from under the sink in the kitchen and in the cabinet.

They opened the cabinet door and George was in there, white as a sheet, with an ax in his hands, and he said, Get me out of here!

Get me out of here!

They said, George, what’s wrong?

Get me .

That's all he could say.

They kind of pulled him out from under the sink, got him on his feet, got his pack, packed him out of here.

He was in the hospital for weeks and wouldn't talk.

He wouldn't tell what happened to him.

Eventually, when he felt better, he did tell the story, but he never came back to Lakes of the Clouds, ever, because he knew it was haunted.

And we know it's haunted.

And to this day, in the springtime, when they come up to check out the hut, no one ever comes alone.

They always come 3 or 4 together, because the spirit is in the hut for the winter and has to be let out when the shutters are taken down.

And the shutters are down now, but the spirits... are still around here.

You can just you can feel them in the air when this wind blows across the mountain.

You know there is something going on or that's just just beyond your conscious mind and you can't quite grasp it.

But it’s here.

I know it.

And perhaps... Well, I hope this won't this won't keep you up tonight.

It probably won't keep me up.

But you never know.

Well, it's nighttime.

Time to go to bed.

It's time for me to say goodbye.

We've had a wonderful trip today.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

I’m Willem Lange, and I hope to see you again on Windows to the Wild.

[evil laughter] ♪