Road trip: Subaru WRX STi to the icy summit of Mount Washington

It's hard to know where to begin really, so let's start with an assumption. This is America, not the Himalayas or Antarctica, so when you hear that Mt Washington is home to "the world's worst weather", you roll your eyes at the hyperbole of it all. This is New Hampshire, a cosy state, quilted with deciduous trees and a soft, welcoming blanket of snow. It's late March, winter has almost blown itself out, and you can nearly smell the apple pies on the windowsills of the prim, twee clapboard towns you drive through as you make your way north from Boston.

Pictures: Justin Leighton

This was originally published in the August 2014 issue of Top Gear magazine

That was us an hour ago. Now Justin and I are quiet. We're standing at the entrance to the Mt Washington Auto Road, the road to the summit. "Look how fast the clouds are moving," I whisper, looking up at the bald summit. More silence in the still, bitter evening. "I don't think those are clouds," comes the reply. It's spindrift. Blown snow, billowing off the side of the mountain, hundreds, perhaps thousands of yards out into the clear, empty sky. And then we hear it, a dull distant moan - as the crow flies, I reckon the summit is four, maybe five miles away, and we can hear the wind blow.

Second assumption: because we've been allowed to do this, it'll be fine. This, by the way, is an attempt to drive to the top of the mountain. Subaru sponsors the weather observatory at the summit. It was initially suggested we drive up there in summer, when there's a hillclimb, much like Pikes Peak. But when we found out that no one had ever driven a car to the summit in winter, and that the observatory was permanently manned and needed supplies, we were adamant. That's what we wanted to do. They said no. We pushed, pulled, wheedled and finally they said yes. They said yes because the Auto Road had said yes, and so had the weather observatory, the State Park and for all I know Betsy at home baking her pies. With that many people giving us the all clear, in a country as litigious as America, what possible jeopardy could be involved? I had a worried feeling I'd have to employ some hyperbole of my own to make this seem like an adventure.

Six thirty, the next morning. We have a standard Subaru WRX STi. The new wing is extra daft, and my abiding impression of it so far is how much stiffer the frame feels, how responsive and hard it is. Very much its own car, not trying to follow the herd. It's stock, as they say out here, 296bhp turbocharged 2.5-litre flat-four, driving all four wheels permanently through a crunchily tight six-speed manual gearbox. Right now, we're making our sole modification - changing the Dunlop winter tyres for a set of studded Nokian Hakkapeliittas. Very... Scandinavian.

We have a support crew: big, burly, friendly guys wearing big, burly clothes, like a pack of St Bernards in Gore-Tex. Naturally, they all arrived in pickups this morning and clearly knew their way around a wrench. This was encouraging. Howie is our point man on a snowmobile, Chris will join me in the car, while Mike will bring up the rear in case of emergencies. He's in a bright yellow piste basher with a yellow metal shed on the back. It's like something out of Thunderbirds. I decide it's called Bertha. And Justin? Well, Howie offered him a seat on the snowmobile, and wanting to appear as macho as his Hemingwayesque beard, Justin accepted. So while I select 21 degrees on the aircon, Justin pulls on his third pair of salopettes.

Did I mention it was cold? Currently eight degrees. Fahrenheit. You'll understand it better as -13 degrees Celsius. Parky. We have a safety briefing, mainly noteworthy for being, well, brief. We have shovels, tow ropes, my snow-driving ability has been kicked about a bit and then without much preamble, and almost before I realise it, we're off. But then all we've got to do is drive up a mountain on a snow-covered road: how much preamble do you need? Only one thing concerns me. Howie told Justin that he doesn't think we'll make it, will be surprised if we get much over halfway. Justin shares this with me in his fatherly voice, the one he uses when he wants to prepare me for disappointment. It had never crossed my mind that we might not reach the summit, and as we set off, I can't believe that we won't. Today feels calmer, the track runs across an open meadow to start with, right alongside a cross-country ski track. It's all rather picture-perfect, the sun shafting through the trees, twinkling on the snow. And then, after a few hundred yards, we get to the mountain.

It starts as abruptly as a ramp in a multi-storey, and it's now, ambling along in first gear, feeling the snow soften and the tyres start to dip through the crust, that seven miles up a mountain seems like a very long way. You feel the first hints of traction loss, get a tight sensation in your gut and realise that you have no idea, not being a rugged native, how deep the snow is, nor how soft, nor what the layers underneath might do. In short, nothing. If I were to employ some descriptive language, I'd describe the surface as pillowy. It's been nicely groomed at this level, and the Subaru is riding atop a compressed layer. The track is wide and deceptively level. We're making progress, so I risk a second gear foray and add a bit more speed. Suddenly, this is less careful crawl, more Rally Sweden. I start to cut corners, let the turbo boost a little, feel the tyres hit the cusp of wheelspin. It goes well for a mile maybe, but then without warning the snow gives way under the nearside front tyre, and the STi nerfs straight into a snowbank. Hmm, pillowy. I try nudging back and forth, but we're going nowhere.

We spend 10 minutes waiting for the yellow lummox to catch up, 10 minutes warmed only by the heat of my own embarrassment.

It hauls the WRX out in a jiffy. There's not a scratch on it, but Chris suggests we check the tyre pressures. Weird - they've risen 3psi since we left, a corollary of the extra altitude. We drop them from 28psi to 20 and head on. It's all pretty smooth - we're in the leeward side of the mountain, still deep in the wooded folds, and the Subaru is happy. It feels tough - lowering the tyre pressures has made a massive difference to traction - and though I haven't tinkered with the adjustable diff settings yet, it seems to be doing a good job in auto.

Chris lets our support know we're at Halfway House, so called because it's... yes, you guessed it. I'm lightly startled at the progress we've made, although the incline ahead quickly snaps me back. I'm sure there's a sum you can do where you feed traction, gradient, weight, surface and momentum into a computer and it spits out the perfect way to approach slopes like this. I think it's called experience. My mental computer spits out the result "apply throttle". There's noise, wheelspin and, about two-thirds of the way up, a complete lack of forward movement. I have to reverse back down, and while doing so, notice that we've reached the treeline. I notice this chiefly as there's now nothing off to my right except fresh air. Very fresh air, given that the car's temperature gauge is now reading 0 Fahrenheit (-17 Celsius). The STi comes over all Herbie on the second attempt. I don't think we're going to make it. We make it.

We celebrate this and cresting the treeline by stopping at Signal Corps. It's utterly stunning: a few stunted conifers and a lot of snow blown into interesting shapes by the wind. Failing to put two and two together, I pull the doorhandle.

Subaru must fit strong hinges. By all rights, I should be watching the door flip uselessly across the tundra right now. It's safe to say we're now exposed. And paralysed with cold. The wind tears straight into any gaps between skin and clothing, harsh enough to make you gasp for breath. I feel my nose hairs stiffen, the moisture of my eyeballs begin to gum up so I blink in slow motion. It's quite alarming. I bend to the wind and go in search of goggles and extra layers. Seven ought to be enough. God knows how I'm actually going to operate a car.

Especially as we're now faced with Five Mile Grade. There'd been chatter about this on the radio. It's back in the lee, a narrow path cut into an exposed slope and deep with drifted snow. Possibly as much as 16 feet of drifted, unstable snow. It looks frightening, with real potential for some slithering into oblivion. We're going to have to send Big Bertha up first, the theory being that if we get stuck, she can drop back, attach a rope and drag us through. If that happens, and we do make it on to the summit, our victory will be hollow.

Our victory will be hollow. Bertha's wide tracks chomp at the snow, leaving it loose and lumpy. We've got no traction. We try dropping the tyre pressures to 13psi. Down in the trees, this was the work of a moment. Here it takes several minutes and much fumbling and gasping. The wind is a shrieking physical force, simply being out in it is gruelling, let alone trying to do a dexterous task. We fall back into the seats, the Subaru now more survival cell than car. We don't go anywhere except down. The STi has been mighty so far - Defender-like in its ability, the mechanical diffs predictable and controllable. The only downside is the turbo. We're trying to be as smooth and gentle as possible, but crest a certain point in the revs, and the turbo picks up. And even if you're alert to it, and try to modulate the throttle, the chances are the torque surge will have reached the wheels. Which instantly spin. And dig down.

With much cursing and many numb fingers, we get the long-line tow rope attached to Bertha. Being towed up a mountain is strange, like being a waterskier behind a speedboat, the wheels more like rudders. Particularly poor, blunt rudders. Bertha pulls, and we're dragged along the path of least resistance, slewing back and forth across this narrow path. Back and forth, back and forth and... "S**t, we're going over!"

The edge looms large, beyond it nothing but steep, open mountainside. A paradise of a powderfield if you like your skiing, but in our current predicament rather more frightening. Chris and I tense, ready to become a giant Snowbaru ball. We beach on a snowbank, both letting out lungfuls. I gingerly open the driver's door and drop a few feet to the snow, and several more into it. That was close.

Digging, yanking, yelling and pulling occupy the next 10 minutes. Actually, the next 90 minutes, as after a brief attempt to drive a section around the Cragway hairpin, we have to latch on again. We attempt another drive from Six Mile Park, but manage no more than a few hundred yards before we're back on the rope. Which, incidentally, is now much shorter. This means less slewing about, but instead those giant tracks are now about four feet away, thrashing at the snow, filling our vision. This is what it must be like to drive into a car crusher.

Justin is currently viewing us from out of the yellow shed. He should have a camera in his hand, but instead he's barely functioning. The cold really caught him on the snowmobile, and right now he needs to recuperate before doing any more pictures. It's a reminder that, just occasionally, magazine stories can have consequences. Later, he'll have frostnip on his nose, caused by the camera body freezing to it. He's lucky his hands didn't suffer similarly.

His lens did. Things are different at Hairpin. Here the gusts are so strong, 24/7/365 that the snow never really settles. Instead, the ground is crusted with ice. Step on it, and it tinkles as the wind scatters the pieces. Justin walks around the front of the STi and disappears. I've never seen anyone fall so fast - it would be proper comedy, but a fall like that, in conditions like this is no laughing matter, particularly as I think the conditions are starting to affect Justin's mental judgement. The lens is smashed, but even when we've got him in the car, Justin wants to keep the door open, complaining about his camera misting up due to the temperature difference. A minute later, he's out of the car and opens the boot. There's nothing in the boot except for tools and paperwork. The tools stay put, but in the mirror I watch as the detritus of this trip - parking tickets, receipts, hotel card keys - flits away in the blink of an eye.

We drive on, now leading our little convoy, practically blown up the hill towards Cow Pasture. Here, at 1,700 metres, Mt Washington temporarily levels out, but the wind is hitting us side on, and I have to steer to keep us going in a straight line. It looks amazing though, rime ice built up thick on the marker posts. From here to the top, we're exposed to the true power of this mountain, and it's awe-inspiring. It's actively hostile, a real sense of menace in its fury. Later, we'll work out the combination of -28 Celsius and 60-70mph winds gave us a windchill of near -60 degrees. And this, for Mt Washington, is an average day, no biggie.

Wisps of cloud rip past, and through them we occasionally catch sight of the summit buildings as we traverse Mother-in-Law's Drop, too numb and exhausted to crack a joke, and approach Home Stretch. The driving here is easy, the surface hard, nothing like as stressful as lower down. I'm really impressed with the WRX STi. Cars with electronically managed 4wd systems wouldn't have let us have the control we needed, anything heavier would have sunk further, anything taller would have exposed us more to those vicious crosswinds. It's got a tough vibe, this new Subaru.

Mt Washington has a steep sting, a final leeward ramp where the soft snow sits maybe eight inches deep, but we've come too far now, suffered too much to allow this to daunt us. I'd swear we make it up by sheer force of willpower. And then we're there, parked among a scatter of hardy, huddled buildings, a ring of man-made battlements in this alien place. In the car, Chris, Justin and I are quietly jubilant. OK, so we didn't quite drive all the way, but both mountain and car emerge with their reputations intact. I reach underneath the seat and pull out a supermarket carrier bag. I've got a delivery to make.

It's much later. Due to the severity of the weather here, nothing is allowed to be left unsecured on the summit overnight. Even the buildings are chained down. I kid you not. So we drove the Subaru back down... and that was perhaps even hairier than the journey up. Then we caught Bertha back to the summit to join the permanent staff of four meteorologists for the night. The weather is clear, sunset staggering, the wind a constant howling bodyslam. Despite this, Justin and I spend most of the time outside, muffled against the moonscape that surrounds us. The sky turns a deep, inky black, and the stars sparkle. It's the most perfect sense of remoteness and isolation I've ever experienced. You can see the lights of settlements in the valley, but they might as well be on a different planet.

Back in 1934, this 1,917-metre mountain - the tallest in the Presidential range, the highest east of the Rockies, 1,600 miles away - recorded the highest directly measured wind at ground level: 231mph. At this time of year, gale-force winds sweep through here two of every three days, most of the winds across North America channelled by geography and meteorology into this small corner. Downstairs, the moderate wind-speed gauge measures to 140mph. Off-duty, the team live in a small room cut into the bedrock at the bottom of a spiral staircase. It's there that we unpack the bag and introduce them to Marmite, chocolate digestives, tea, brown sauce, English mustard and baked beans. It's not, if I'm being honest, a great dinner combo, but it wouldn't have done to arrive empty-handed.