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That’s me posing gloveless at the summit of Mount Washington
The frozen fog the other morning took me back many years to when my brother and I climbed Mount Washington in New Hampshire while hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. It took two attempts to finally reach the cold, windy summit.
Even though the mountain is only 6,288 feet in elevation, it boasts the highest wind speed ever recorded on the planet at 231 mph (in 1934). You start the hike at the base of the mountain, which is around 1,000 feet, so there’s a mile of elevation gain.
On Aug. 20, 1982, six of us hikers broke treeline and one gust of wind blew all of us against a big boulder making it hard to even pull a hand away from the cold rock. I glanced at the others with a bit of apprehension. If it was this bad here, what would it be like on the summit of Mount Washington, only a few miles away?
The strong gusts suddenly changed to steady winds and the fog made the scene even more eerie. We could actually see the wind blow up one side of the ridge and get sucked right down the other side. We couldn’t take a step without losing our balance. As we continued to climb higher up the ridge, the wind grew steadily worse, and the packs on our backs didn’t help matters any. We were experiencing the severe and unpredictable weather of the New Hampshire’s Presidential Range that all hikers on the Appalachian Trail hear so much about.
This was one of the many new and exciting experiences encountered since I stood atop Springer Mountain, Ga., over four months and 1,800 miles earlier. The Appalachian Trail – a name that had always fascinated me since childhood. A 2,100-mile-long trail from Georgia to Maine passing through 14 states, eight national forests and two national parks. Now, I was only 300 miles away from making my dream come true. But we had to get over this mountain.
We wanted so bad to continue. The summit was within reach but we had about 1,000 feet more in elevation to climb. At times we had to hold onto each other as we were really getting blown around. Finally, we all agreed that we’d better bail out. We passed the Sphinx Trail a couple of hundred yards back, so we did a 180 and literally ran for it. We reached the trail in a few minutes and headed down into the Great Gulf Wilderness.
In the Presidentials, there are several of these “bail-out” trails. If hikers are ever out on an exposed ridge and the weather starts looking bad, they can take one of these escape routes. Like the old saying goes, “Better to be safe than sorry.” The combination of extreme wind, fog, wet and cold have dubbed Mount Washington the “Home of the World’s Worst Weather” and one of “America’s 10 Most Dangerous Hikes”.
The Sphinx Trail is an extremely steep trail, but it does get you off the ridge in a hurry. We heard that the winds on Washington that day were over 70 mph, plus there were suppose to be thunderstorms so it’s a good thing we didn’t continue.
On Aug. 22, three of us decided to make another attempt for the summit via Tuckerman Ravine. The morning started with clear blue sky in the valley, but a cloudbank hung over Mount Washington, giving us a foreboding feeling as if the mountain was saying, “Come on up and take your chances.”
As we climbed, summer turned into winter. At Hermit Lake Shelter we changed into full winter gear and started up the headwall. There were still big chunks of ice and snow remaining from last winter, and even though it was still August, winter was just around the bend again for this area. Tuckerman Ravine is a famous ski area and can accumulate up to 100 feet of snow and keep people skiing into June.
As we reached the top of the headwall, we entered into the fog bank. The temperature dropped quickly as we climbed and the wind picked up. And this was the leeward side of the mountain. Rime ice covered all the rocks and it gave me such a desolate feeling. It resembled a windblown tundra. Actually there is permafrost at the summit along with arctic flora resembling that of northern Labrador.
Little white crosses attest to the fact of Mount Washington’s bad weather. Each one marks the area where someone died of exposure on the mountain. In 1982, that number reached 100. Since then the number has grown to almost 140 fatalities on the mountain; most died of exposure in the summer (for comparison, over 220 people have died attempting to climb Mount Everest).
Most of those who died from severe weather on Washington did so in the summer. For example, Aug. 22 was a nice summer day in the valleys. The temperature down below was probably in the 60s or 70s. However, at the summit it was the coldest day of the summer yet. The weather station recorded a temperature of 27 degrees and -15 degrees with the wind chill. The winds that day hit 74 mph and there were three inches of snow the night before.
We started out the day in just a pair of shorts and a polypropylene top but had to put on long johns, wool pants, sweater, pile jacket, wool hat and gloves. If we tried to make it to the summit in a pair of shorts and a shirt, there would probably be three more little white crosses on the mountain.
When we reached the parking lot at the summit, my brother Frank spotted a “No Hitch-hiking” sign and wanted me to pose in front of it. I about froze my hand off as he fiddled around with his camera and I stood there gloveless. A chain-linked fence at the weather station had ice hanging all over it. We hoped for a clear day, but the visibility was about 50 feet.
Air masses flowing from the south, west and the St. Lawrence River Valley in the north help create Mount Washington’s high winds and the drastic changes in temperature. The elevation of the White Mountains and its relative proximity to the Atlantic Ocean also influence the weather.
As soon as we got off the summit, the clouds broke and we got some fantastic views back toward Washington and all around us. Even the high winds and the cold were exciting. It gave me an even greater respect for nature and showed how small and insignificant man can be. I realized that the wind could pick us up like feathers at any moment and blow us right off the ridge.
On Sept. 17, 1982 my brother and I stood atop Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.
