Why Mount Washington Kills

[newboots]

I just finished reading this thread from top to bottom. Great info and an eye-opener for anyone who doesn't know about the risk of hiking in the higher peaks of the Northeast, and Mt. Washington's special ability to surprise even people with considerable expertise.

 

[echo_VT]

I remember reaching the summit for the first time, I was 12, and my mom and I dragged my older brother along for a hike (he is not the hiking type) and I still remember the look on his face when we reached the top and people were walking around in flip flops... "What?!?! We could have DRIVEN up here!!!"

my husband and 6 y.o daughter went to the Whites for one week in August of this year. i joined them for a long weekend after that full week. but they waited the week for an all-clear bluebird non-windy day to hike Mt Washington. and when they did, it took them a full 8 hours, 4 hours to the top, they hung around and ate a bit. then 4 hours back down.

she started out in a tee and hiking pants. by the top she was wearing a hat, gloves and a very warm mid-layer. hubs wore a puffy jacket at the top.

our daughter also exclaimed "WE COULD HAVE DRIVEN UP HERE?" at the top - she was so mad at my husband/her dad. we told her it's $30 to drive up there and he took her up the better route. to which many others on the trail agreed so that's convinced her somewhat. they did lion's head and tuckerman.

later that week we hiked up to the Madison Hut. it was amazing, another bluebird clear day with no winds. at the trailhead it was 70F, at the hut it was about 40F and we could see our breath when we breathed out. it was THAT cold. we were sweating tons though so we didn't wear the additional layers we brought.

but the day before it was windy: we were at Cannon, it was high winds (about 30-40 mph) and by the time we went up the tram, the winds were getting faster and faster and they shut the whole mtn down and shipped us out. the entire time that the winds turned bad was from 11:30 am to 1 pm. prior to that the winds were high til 10 am and then slowed down enough for Cannon to open up the tram. the winds were up to 70 mph by the time we descended down the tram.

the Whites are nothing to snuff at. it's incredibly gorgeous. above treeline is just incredible views and the vegetation is so very interesting. but there are warning signs at the trailheads. "turn back at the first inkling of bad weather. many have died here."

previously i've taken our daughter to Zermatt in Switerland. the hikes there are incredible. they are hard as well. we had to take a chairlift or train up, do a hike and descend on the chairlift as well. there is a train that goes to the top but we didn't take it. it's really long (about an hour? or more?) and it's really expensive.

 

[Soujan]

I made another winter attempt to summit Washington this past February. Last time it was brutally cold, this time it was a snow storm. Second time I've had to turn around at Lion's Head. The guide was trying to get to Lion's Head by noon. We got there at 1 but I was so exhausted from the knee to thigh high snow I couldn't do anymore. There was another group that came from Ohio that decided they were going to push on. They brought plastic markers to place in the snow so they could find the trail again when coming back down. I have yet to try it in the summer. I want to do the Presidential Traverse this year.

 

[Kimmyt]

So I actually have a story of bad choices while hiking on Mt. Washington (that luckily did not have a bad ending).

A long time ago I was a young and not entirely knowledgeable rock climber on an east coast road trip with my older and much more experienced, though admittedly slightly reckless safety-wise, climbing partners. We started at my usual haunt, the Gunks in NY, and had the joy of experiencing 100-year level floods. I will always remember that level of flooding and rain because I remember the flooded fields of the farms as we drove to the crags, and the pumpkins (it was September/October) were FLOATING. Roads were closed, it rained nonstop. We caught a few clear days and climbed, or hiked, or hung at the campsite and drank. Whatever we did back then. After about a week of this, I headed out with them on a drive up to NH to climb at all the classic crags, Rumney, Cannon, Whitehorse Ledges, Cathedral Rock. It still was slightly rainy but for the most part had dried up enough that we actually could get some decent climbing in. After almost two weeks of climbing daily we decided to take a rest day. My partners decided it would be fun to hike Mt. Washington. You know, how you do on a rest day after pretty much nonstop rain causing regional flooding all down the east coast.

Now, aside from being a rock climber with not the vastest amount of experience, I was also not a big hiker. I liked to brag that I only hiked to get to the crag. Walking somewhere just for the purpose of walking was BORING. (Guys, don't blame me, I was in my early 20s and to be fair in hindsight my partners were kind of shitheads so I didn't have the best influences). I was like, 'Uhm, ok." Basically that was our prep. They had an idea of a trail, and this honestly explains my level of personal responsibility on this trip, I still don't know what trail we hiked. I just remember that they said, 'well its not one of the trails that is recommended, but we don't want to be BORING DO WE.' No, I most assuredly did not. So we stopped at the ranger station to poke around and I offered to sign us in to the ledger to which they assured me we did not want the Rangers to have our information because then they might come looking for us or something awful like that! (I know I know, in hindsight I am not sure what the actual hell I was thinking but this fits into those guys off-the-grid type of style). So we went on our easy little rest day hike.

The trail was a mess. Flooding everywhere, whole sections of the trail covered up by raging water that we had to precariously cross. The trail we ascended was steep, and had several sections of probably 3rd or even 4th class slab that was just drenched and in some parts even running water. If you hike or climb you know that wet slab is not something you want to be on. The hike was awful, one of the most miserable experiences in my life. We got to the top and unanimously decided not to go back the way we came as the thought of descending that wet slab was terrifying. We made it back, after who knows how long, and collapsed into our sleeping bags luckily to climb again another day.

That day scared me so much, in hind sight, that afterwards I took a look at my perceptions of personal responsibiity, risk taking etc. At the time I was just doing what I thought people or climbers did. After that I decided to no longer be just a passive member of a team, I wasn't going to end up in that scary and very dangerous situation again.

And I never climbed with those guys again.

 

[bounceswoosh]

So I actually have a story of bad choices while hiking on Mt. Washington (that luckily did not have a bad ending).

A long time ago I was a young and not entirely knowledgeable rock climber on an east coast road trip with my older and much more experienced, though admittedly slightly reckless safety-wise, climbing partners. We started at my usual haunt, the Gunks in NY, and had the joy of experiencing 100-year level floods. I will always remember that level of flooding and rain because I remember the flooded fields of the farms as we drove to the crags, and the pumpkins (it was September/October) were FLOATING. Roads were closed, it rained nonstop. We caught a few clear days and climbed, or hiked, or hung at the campsite and drank. Whatever we did back then. After about a week of this, I headed out with them on a drive up to NH to climb at all the classic crags, Rumney, Cannon, Whitehorse Ledges, Cathedral Rock. It still was slightly rainy but for the most part had dried up enough that we actually could get some decent climbing in. After almost two weeks of climbing daily we decided to take a rest day. My partners decided it would be fun to hike Mt. Washington. You know, how you do on a rest day after pretty much nonstop rain causing regional flooding all down the east coast.

Now, aside from being a rock climber with not the vastest amount of experience, I was also not a big hiker. I liked to brag that I only hiked to get to the crag. Walking somewhere just for the purpose of walking was BORING. (Guys, don't blame me, I was in my early 20s and to be fair in hindsight my partners were kind of shitheads so I didn't have the best influences). I was like, 'Uhm, ok." Basically that was our prep. They had an idea of a trail, and this honestly explains my level of personal responsibility on this trip, I still don't know what trail we hiked. I just remember that they said, 'well its not one of the trails that is recommended, but we don't want to be BORING DO WE.' No, I most assuredly did not. So we stopped at the ranger station to poke around and I offered to sign us in to the ledger to which they assured me we did not want the Rangers to have our information because then they might come looking for us or something awful like that! (I know I know, in hindsight I am not sure what the actual hell I was thinking but this fits into those guys off-the-grid type of style). So we went on our easy little rest day hike.

The trail was a mess. Flooding everywhere, whole sections of the trail covered up by raging water that we had to precariously cross. The trail we ascended was steep, and had several sections of probably 3rd or even 4th class slab that was just drenched and in some parts even running water. If you hike or climb you know that wet slab is not something you want to be on. The hike was awful, one of the most miserable experiences in my life. We got to the top and unanimously decided not to go back the way we came as the thought of descending that wet slab was terrifying. We made it back, after who knows how long, and collapsed into our sleeping bags luckily to climb again another day.

That day scared me so much, in hind sight, that afterwards I took a look at my perceptions of personal responsibiity, risk taking etc. At the time I was just doing what I thought people or climbers did. After that I decided to no longer be just a passive member of a team, I wasn't going to end up in that scary and very dangerous situation again.

And I never climbed with those guys again.

Thank you for sharing that story!

Interesting - I was originally picturing the two other climbers as other women.

I think, if you have less experience with hiking and more experience with rock climbing, it would be easy to dismiss the danger of a hike. After all, it's hard to imagine falling to your death when your feet are on the ground. It's just walking, right?

I've also been loathe to sign in at those ranger stations - I think the idea being that OBVIOUSLY I wouldn't get into trouble, so I'd hate for them to go looking for me and waste their time/resources ...

Despite all that.. it does sound like a pretty great trip. Too bad it wasn't with better people / mentors.

 

[Kimmyt]

I think, if you have less experience with hiking and more experience with rock climbing, it would be easy to dismiss the danger of a hike. After all, it's hard to imagine falling to your death when your feet are on the ground. It's just walking, right?

Yes, I definitely still fall into this. The fact is that I'm comfortable at heights. I'm no free soloist, but I don't tend to stress much about hikes with exposure and am more likely (or at least when I was hiking more) to choose harder/more technical routes in order to feel any sort of challenge/thrill.

I've also been loathe to sign in at those ranger stations - I think the idea being that OBVIOUSLY I wouldn't get into trouble, so I'd hate for them to go looking for me and waste their time/resources ...

Yeah, I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I mean, most of the time when we're climbing or in the backcountry here, we're not signing a ledger or anything. Funnily enough, I have some friends who were climbing something and were super late getting down and so another friend of ours got them a rescue. They were taking their time getting down (in the dark) and had to wave off an attempted helicopter rescue from the local rangers. They were pretty embarassed! But they could have been in a bad situation and no one knew what was going on, so...

Despite all that.. it does sound like a pretty great trip. Too bad it wasn't with better people / mentors.

You know, it really was. It was one of my purest memories of being free and young and doing whatever I wanted. I made some dumb mistakes, but I learned from them, and I think thats important too.

 

[Christy]

Yeah, I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I mean, most of the time when we're climbing or in the backcountry here, we're not signing a ledger or anything. Funnily enough, I have some friends who were climbing something and were super late getting down and so another friend of ours got them a rescue. They were taking their time getting down (in the dark) and had to wave off an attempted helicopter rescue from the local rangers. They were pretty embarassed! But they could have been in a bad situation and no one knew what was going on, so...

I hope you guys don't think I'm picking on you but this is really, really important.

As your friendly public lands employee, I would strongly encourage you to use the trailhead register and also to leave your info with someone with instructions as to when they should contact someone in case you are overdue. So that means you are leaving a detailed itinerary with someone--what trailhead you are starting from, where exactly you are going and when you expect to be back--and telling them, don't call for help until X time. So no, you don't want SAR coming for you if you are a few hours late (I'm actually surprised they did in your friends' case--especially with a heli!). Maybe not even overnight--everyone should be equipped to spend the night outside if they have to, and you don't want SAR coming for you if you are perfectly capable of getting out but decided to hunker down for the night and get out the next day.

It's also not a bad idea to leave that detailed itinerary in your car. SAR will check that (and they will know where your car is, because you left that info with someone).

So much time is wasted when someone is reported missing because we don't know exactly where they are. Obviously it can be bad for that person that is missing to have people barking up the wrong tree, but if there are multiple SARs going on at once (and this is common when it's busy season) you are potentially taking resources away from other peoples SARs because you haven't given them good location/itinerary info. It's such an easy thing to do that is potentially life saving and it prevents a huge waste of resources/SAR time and safety.

SAR people also really, really like it when people carry a personal locator beacon that gives the person the ability to text their situation. They don't like it when people call for rescue because they don't want to hike back up the Grand Canyon or because they ran out of beer, but they think it's pretty nice for a person to be able to tell them exactly what the problem is.

 

[bounceswoosh]

As your friendly public lands employee, I would strongly encourage you to use the trailhead register and also to leave your info with someone with instructions as to when they should contact someone in case you are overdue.

FWIW, my husband always knows where I am and when I'll be back. I recently also got a Garmin InReach so that I can tell him if I'm running late, he can track me, and I can hit SOS if it's actually warranted.

 

[newboots]

@Christy - thanks for outlining all of this. Even though I read a fair amount and have hiking experience from childhood, you provided some info that was new to me in just that post. I'm sure we can never learn enough, but it sounds like this is the minimum we should know before we set out. And of course you didn't even go over having the right gear to survive, changes for the weather, and level of physical fitness required to safely venture out into the wild.