STOP means Go, right?
Ummm, right?
I got myself into quite a situation while winter hiking this month in the Northern Presidentials of New Hampshire, in part because I have a hard time knowing when to stop.
Acting as something of a guide to my girlfriend and my uncle and his 12-year-old son, I unknowingly led them into a wind tunnel between Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Adams where 100 mph gusts knocked us sideways and to the ground. Whipping snow limited visibility to 25 feet and the entire Gulfside Trail was buried under four feet of snow, creating a situation where we lost the trail and had to cautiously hike forward wondering if were going to be wandering aimlessly into the night and need an emergency rescue.
Of course, that made the trip all the more memorable.
THE ADVENTURE began at 4:30am in Canterbury, Conn., where we piled into my uncle’s red Mazda minivan and drove north. By 10am we were at IME in North Conway where my cousin, Aidan, picked up boots and crampons. By 11am we were at the Appalachia Trailhead in Randolph. By noon we were trekking up Short Line trail to connect with Randolph trail to connect with Spur trail to connect with Hincks. All was fine for the first half-mile.
Then we hit a wall of unbroken snow 1-2 feet deep. Slogging through it in snowshoes was like wearing bricks on each foot.
What was meant to be a fun and encouraging introduction to winter hiking for Uncle Steve and Aidan quickly became a grueling slog as we gained about 3,000 feet over four miles to the hut’s elevation of 4,300 feet. In summertime the hike takes 2-3 hours. But in these conditions, and wearing a 30-pound backpack, the same trek took us five hours.
I plowed forward to break the trail while Sarah and Uncle Steve followed behind. At one point, I was later told, Aidan fell sideways into the snow and began to cry, more out of exhaustion and frustration than anything. I think we each had our moments of hunching over our trekking poles and staring down into the snow and asking ourselves, When will the misery end?
Finally, at 5:30pm as dusk settled in, Gray Knob appeared through the woods.
“That was the hardest thing I think I’ve done in my life,” said Uncle Steve, who is 51 years old. While he’s not the same sprightly 22-year-old who pedaled a bicycle across North America a quarter-century ago, Uncle Steve is also no couch potato.
We unstrapped our snowshoes and tromped inside the cabin, where it was a balmy 40°F inside. A small wood stove took off the chill. As our eyes adjusted to the low light, we could discern the caretaker and a handful of other trekkers who had ventured up the mountain that day.
Dinner was slices of cheddar cheese and cured meat, instant soup mixed with diced carrots and celery, and almond-filled dark chocolate. Best of all was the bourbon. I think I’ve gotten a good handle on what to pack for trips like this, but I never pack enough bourbon and whiskey. We were in our sleeping bags by 9pm.
WE WOKE at 7am to the Mt. Washington Observatory’s weather report crackling over the radio. I faintly heard the broadcast:
… winds gusting well over 100 mph. The strong northwesterly flow will also be dragging significantly colder air in, dropping temperatures today and into the overnight hours. With even lower wind chill values expected, the wind chill advisory currently in place will expire at noon when a wind chill warning will go into effect and remain until Monday afternoon. … blowing snow and dense summit fog are currently making for white out conditions on the summit, a trend that will likely continue through the evening hours. … any Search and Rescue efforts that arise anywhere in the White Mountains will be very slow going or possibly delayed until safer conditions return.
That pretty much means: Don’t come crying to us if you get hurt or lost out there, because we wouldn’t be stupid enough to hike today!
My mind turned toward immediate needs: coffee. I rustled out of my sleeping bag and turned and slid barefoot into my still-damp boots. Before we could heat up hot water for coffee and oatmeal, we needed water, so I grabbed a green 3-gallon jug and walked outside to the half-mile path leading to the hut’s sole the water source. Another hiker was already there, staring at what we had both expected to be a flowing spring. Instead, we only found a sheet of ice — the previous person had forgotten to cover the spring with snow, which acts as an insulator and prevents the water from freezing.
We used our boots to crack through the ice, but now we needed a cup to scoop the water, which we’d both forgotten. The other hiker returned to the hut to grab a cup while I continued hacking at the ice. The air temperature hovered around 0°F. I removed a glove so that I could reach into the puddle and pull out some ice chunks. My hand throbbed. After 10 minutes the other hiker returned with a shovel and cup, which we used to fill the 3-gallon jugs, cup by cup.
After a half-mile walk back with that 25-pound jug, I was inside Gray Knob with my hand around a hot cup of Starbucks Via (which is the best instant coffee ever).
The hut caretaker, Mike, a Virginia-native who’d lived on the mountain since August, offered us a detailed weather summary: It was -4°F atop Mt. Washington, the wind was blowing steadily northwest at 71 mph, visibility was 25 feet, and conditions were worsening.
We sat with hot drinks and considered potential hikes. We’d worked hard the day before, and today’s weather conditions didn’t look great, so we decided that we’d forgo any summit attempts. An option was to take the Gray Knob Path to the Randolph Path to Edmonds Col, elevation 5,000 feet. From there we’d take the Gulfside Trail behind Mt. Sam Adams (not an official peak) to Thunderstorm Junction, elevation 5,500 feet. That’s higher than all but the four tallest peaks in the eastern United States, but it’s still several hundred feet below Mt. Adams or Mt. Jefferson, which are treacherously rocky.
That plan seemed reasonably challenging, and Mike agreed the hike was doable. We pulled up our snowpants and laced up our snowboots and strapped on our snowshoes and headed for treeline.
It was beautiful, pristine. The trail was blanketed in snow and huge blobs of snow billowed from the trees. But visibility was quickly falling as the clouds settled in and winds picked up.
Soon, what should have been a great view of Mt. Jefferson was simply thick clouds. It gave a feeling of ominousness, kind of like when swimming in the ocean at night — unable to see anything with your eyes, your mind starts conjuring images of whatever scary things might be lurking about, be it a big shark or a deep ravine.
The terrain leveled and became rocky as we entered Edmonds Col. I pulled out the map.
“We want to head that way,” I yelled above the wind, which had picked up considerably now that we were above treeline. “We should soon be in the lee of Mt. Sam Adams and shielded from the wind.”
Instead, the wind only picked up further. I hadn’t realized we’d actually gain another 500 feet before turning behind Mt. Sam Adams and getting into the lee. It quickly became difficult to walk straight, and I was blown sideways. Gusts approached 100mph, on par with a Category 2 Hurricane, toppling Sarah to the ground.
Every quarter-mile or so we’d huddle behind a boulder to get out of the wind and shout words of motivation, which for me was yelling “wahoo!” and exclaiming “This wind is incredible!” Last year while hiking up here, our friend Jeff referred to a similar boulder atop Mt. Jefferson as “cower rock.”
As we cowered now, Sarah looked at me and said sternly, “I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to get down.”
After another half-mile, which seemed much further, we curved behind Mt. Sam Adams and back into tropical storm-level winds.
But now there was another problem. The trail markers had disappeared beneath the snow drifts. I stopped, peering around for the next cairn. Nothing.
“We have two options,” I yelled, as the others approached. “We can go back to the last trail-marker that we saw and reorient ourselves, or we can head in this direction, which I think is correct.” Sarah and Aidan voted to return to the previous trail marker. We started to retrace our steps, which wasn’t so easy since the wind and snow was quickly covering our tracks, when I thought that I could see the trail. I yelled and motioned for them to follow. As I walked forward I sank to my waist in snow, obviously not on the correct path, but still trying to push forward confidently.
We huddled together again.
“Did you see a cairn?” Sarah asked.
“No,” I said, “but I feel like this is the right direction.”
Sarah looked skeptical. Aidan turned to his dad and said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
I pulled out the map and pointed to how the contours showed us now walking at a level elevation until we reached Thunderstorm Junction, which meant we had to go this way.
I hiked forward, thinking “this must be the way, there must be a cairn.”
After 10 minutes, which felt like much longer, a five-foot tall cairn miraculously appeared. I patted the rocks lovingly.
As we rounded Mt. Sam Adams the wind picked back up. We finally intersected with Thunderstorm Junction, which has a huge cairn about eight-feet-tall — something of a marvel to the modest engineering works of the trail workers up here. Foot-long blades of snow were frozen perfectly horizontal to the nearby sign post. It was intimidating.
We didn’t linger. “Head for the trees!” yelled Uncle Steve.
We descended Spur Trail and detoured briefly onto Knight’s Castle lookout, where we finally got a glimpse of King Ravine. It was frightening to how close we had been to the edge without having any sense of our proximity.
Before circling back to Grey Knob, we stopped at Crag Camp — which is perched on the edge of King Ravine — and quickly walked inside to admire the hut’s famous pipe organ that was lugged up the mountain piece by heavy piece years ago.
Back on the trail we soon encountered our first sign of life that day: Mike, the long-bearded and long-suffering caretaker of Gray Knob. “Where’s your fourth?” he said to me, as Uncle Steve was a few paces behind. “We left him atop Mt. Adams, couldn’t make it,” I said. Mike stared at me unsmiling. “Um,” I added, “he’s right behind us.”
Uncle Steve was glad to hear that at least Mike was looking out for him.
Back at Gray Knob, Aidan and Uncle Steve fired up the camp stove to prepare hot chocolate. Sarah and I grabbed the 3-gallon water jugs and headed for the “spring” to refill our water supplies.
By the time we returned to the cabin the sun was about to set. Uncle Steve and I quickly skipped outside to a nearby lookout point a quarter-mile away. I was only wearing my tights and slippers, but the awesome view was warming in itself. The fog had lifted, the White Mountains had reappeared, and the sky had turned orange-blue.
THE NEXT MORNING, after breakfast and another water run and a farewell to Mike, we laced up our boots and strapped on our snowshoes and headed back for civilization.
On the way down, we stopped at the lookout, awed to see Mt. Jefferson now towering above us at 5,712 feet. Somewhere up there was Edmonds Col and “Cower Rock” and “Mircacle Cairn” and Thunderstorm Junction where we had wandered aimlessly. Visibility the previous day had been 25 feet, according to official data from the Mt. Washington Observatory. Today it was 100 miles. The wind had also increased slightly to 76 mph while the temperature had fallen nine degrees to -13°F.
Aidan was not deterred. Uncle Steve sent me an email days later: “Went to bed last night reading the AMC guide and thinking about the next adventure. Aidan and I will be out there somewhere during April vacation.”
