Beautiful pictures! and thanks for sharing your experience and taking initiative to try your Air on this climb. I see some snow/ice at the summit, what time of the year did you go? I wonder if it would be safe to drive Lucid up Mt. Washington, if there's snow or Ice on the road?
I looked up this forum for exactly this kind of post as I'm going to Mt. Washington in a few days and was nervous for how much battery would drain during the climb and if my Lucid Air would fit those narrow roads when passing other other way traffic specially with pretty gigantic ditches on the edges? Should there be a problem? We'll be driving from NYC , stopping over in Boston where i may charge but where else should i charge before starting our Mt. Washington climb? please advice!
I have some Zenith Red Air. I'm a YouTuber and excited to make some 360 shots of this beauty on the Mt. Washington, only if i can gather some courage to do this on Lucid Air.
I went on September 17th of 2022.
I had free EA charging. I actually went slightly indirectly by heading to Portland Maine to the EA charger there and then cut across to Mt Washington. It was only very slightly out of the way but was absolutely the right decision for me as it gave me peace of mind about my SOC. When I do it again, I'd take the exact same route.
The road is amazingly maintained and has never felt dangerous any of the many times I've gone up. There have been 3 deaths on the auto road over the past 150 years:
In 1880, a stage coach overturned (in the hands of a drunk driver), and a passenger was killed. In 1984, a vehicle experienced brake failure about a mile up the road and was unable to make it down safely. And a motorcyclist suffered a fatal crash in 2009.
Pretty good safety record considering 45,000 cars go up it each year.
Don't be in a rush to get to the top. There's so many stops along the way and each one will be such a different perspective. New Hampshire's tallest ski mountain, Wildcat, is right across the road. By the time you get near the top of Mt. Washington it'll look like the flat lands from your perspective.
The biggest variable, by far, is weather and visibility. Even when totally clouded in though, the road feels super safe. It's scarier for the passengers watching the edge and their minds racing. The driver is focused on the road.
I've had trips where the clouds never cleared at top. One trip, it was totally socked in, you couldn't see more than 100 feet. I decided to go through the museum in the basement of the large lodge building at the summit. 20 minutes later as I came upstairs from the museum and voila! it was as crystal clear out as ever. It can be that dramatic of a change.
If you make all your stops on the way up, which I feel is best, the ride down will be as simple as it gets with the Lucid. With an ICE vehicle you really do have to think/worry about overheating your brakes. You have zero worries with the Lucid as you'll barely touch them.
Make sure you listen to the recorded self-guided tour during the drive up. It will give so much information that you wouldn't realize on your own.
Obviously foliage will be amazing but it may be getting late in the season for peak. The Kancamagus Highway is by far the #1 place for leaf peeping. The area is void of EA chargers and I'm not sure about alternates so make sure you have a plan if you're doing it. Be sure to visit the shops in nearby North Conway. Some hotels there have chargers too which I considered but didn't need.
I've never gone this late in the season but the road is so well managed I have to imagine if it is open it is safe. Enjoy your trip and I look forward to seeing the results!
