Mt. Washington Update
Wow....
I'm not ever sure where to begin. Hell, I'm not even sure what day it is, lol.
I missed an entire night of sleep so I'm thrown way out of whack.
I'll start by saying that if you haven't experience Mt. Washington in the sort of weather conditions I faced, no words I jot down here will be able to portray reality. Not even pictures or video.
I left Wednesday evening with Gordy and Jeff. Our plan was to drive as far as possible... once too tired to go on we'd find a hotel. The drive was brutal and the fact that we ran into a deadly accident's traffic jam and sat with the engine off for over an hour didn't help. We made it more than half way before we called it quits.
Once up there midday on Thursday, we found a campsite and set camp. It was pretty cold but nothing unbearable. Looking up at the mountain ranges, you could see that they were very snowy. By Thursday night, the rest of the guys met us at our site. They were Greg, Gene, and Ramsey. I didn't knw any of these guys, nor did Jeff, so we sat around the campfire and mingled while drinking some beers. Then the rain started to fall and the sun vanished so we retired to our tents so we could get up early in the AM and start the Presidential Traverse.
Our crew was pretty good.
You guys know me.
Gordy as well.
Jeff is a construction worker who grew up with Gordy and is very active in fitness.
Greg is a personal trainer who runs marathons.
Gene is a Mixed Martial Artist though he doesn't look it.
And Ramsey is a bad mother fucker, lol. He was a marine for a long time, is 225 lbs and leaner than me, and has faced some harsh, harsh conditions that he told us about around the campfire on Thursday. Guy is amazingly cool to boot.
I really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. I don't think anyone did except for Gordy and Jeff. They tried to do this last year in October. They got over 3 mountains and got stranded due to weather. Thankfully for them they were stranded in wind and rain with relatively mild temps. A famous quote of that trip was from Gordy's 350 lb, 6'4 twin brother while they lay in their tent stranded, "Gordy, you better fucking promise me we make it off this mountain." He was crying while saying it.
I knew that but just as I'm sure most reading this won't be able to truly understand... I didn't either. As I said before, words don't explain.
As we started the climb Friday, it got tiring real fast. I was sort of expecting some trail that you follow. There isn't one. It's rough, very rough, terrain. Straight uphill too. Some of the time you're jumping from rock to rock. Most of the time actually. Other times you're actually climbing up cliffs. Other times you're walking through snow drifts. Some of them were 10 feet+ deep. Just absolutely brutal.
We were all sticking together pretty well until the peak of the second mountain. If you haven't done a hike such as this, let me explain what these peaks are like. Once you're above the tree line (the point where trees stop growing, which happens to be very low on these particular mountains) the weather is brutal. Even when it's sunny, it's freaking windy. Plus there's no cover. It's nothing to have sustained 40-50 mph winds and the temps are cold. It's eerily similar to being on the moon, I would suppose. But worse weather, lol.
By the time we came off the second peak, the weather was turning for the worst. It started to get really cloudy. We had little visibility and the rain started to fall. Gene was starting to slowdown a bit so we took a 15 minute break. Our plan was to make it to the base of Mt. Washington and hike down to a campsite below. We also knew that at about that spot at the base there was a huge cabin called a Lake in the Clouds, I believe. We knew it was closed this time of year but we also knew there was an emergency hatch in the basement with a small room in case you get stranded that they supposedly leave unlocked.
As the break was coming to an end, we agreed that Gordy, Jeff and I would go on ahead since our pace was a bit faster and the two teams would meet up at the cabin before we descend to the campsite. We decided this b/c if you get too far ahead and have to stop and wait time and time again, you freeze. You have to keep moving as much as possible.
The three of us set out...
By the time we got 3/4 of the way up the third mountain, the weather turned brutal fast. It started to snow and sleet violently and the wind was like nothing I've ever seen. I later learned that the wind at Lake in the Clouds was a sustained 70-80 mph. Where we were, not very close to the cabin yet, I am sure the winds were higher. Once we got above the tree line of that third mountain, we were soaking wet and the temps were plummeting. Although we had warm weather gear on as well as rain gear, when you're in a blizzard of ice, rain, and snow coupled with hurricane force winds, there's not much you can do to keep the wetness out. The wind would blow so forcefully that it would literally move me a few feet side to side right off the path I was trying to stick to.
I should've added in the beginning but mind you we are all carrying 50-60 lb backpacks while doing all this.
We started to freeze so we huddled up and made a game plan. We agreed that the second party should be okay since Ramsey is with them. We had no idea how far back they were but we knew Ramsey had dealt with some extreme stuff back in the day. We figured he'd either have them close behind us or he'd bunker down someplace and make a makeshift camp until the weather passed. Gordy, Jeff, and I knew it wasn't much further to Lake in the Clouds. We also knew that if we didn't make it there and the hatch in the basement wasn't open that there was a chance we'd get hypothermia and/or killed by the storm.
So we said we'd head for the cabin and pray that the hatch was open.
When we got to the cabin, I was surprised by the shear size of the thing. I later found that it sleeps 80-90 people. However, this time of year all the windows and doors are boarded up. The emergency hatch is located on the rear-side of the building. I remember Gordy saying, "this hatch has to be unlocked, we need this!"
We reach for the handle. At this point I kid you not I was worried. When we open the door, we were shattered to find the room, if you want to call it that, had at least 18 inches of ice of the floor. The room was scary... it had 2 wooden bunks that wouldn't be big enough for a child and I could touch each side of the room with my arm span. So very small and nothing to it. It had a tin room and stone walls. We got in and shut the door to get out of the crazy weather and wind. As we sit there strategizing, we realize how much worse we were getting with each passing minute since a) we were soaked and freezing and b) the longer we sat there inactive, the colder we were going to get.
At this point pretty much all rational though goes out the window. We were shivering uncontrollably and we stripped down to just our long underwear. At one point I was standing there in bare feet on the ice and I felt warmer than when I had the wet gear on. Gordy and Jeff were explaining how if we got dry and crammed up all together we could survive until the other crew met us.
I pretty much said, "You guys are being fucking idiots. The weather is getting worse and we don't even know if the other guys are coming. They could have got lost or they could have bunkered down below the tree line when the realized how bad things were getting. And the longer we wait here the colder we're going to be and if we don't get out of here soon and start moving, we'll die... especially once night comes." We just wouldn't survive in this little box of a room with the conditions. Plus, this room was literally a freezer. Stone walls, tin roof, and thick ice floor... there's no way we'd survive.
I said we need to get our gear back on and head straight down the mountain to find shelter in the tree line. Gordy was refusing to leave the other guys behind.
Just when I convinced them we had to make a move, we hear the other guys yelling from outside the door.
Everyone piled into the room. We later joked that we were literally inviting them into a freezer to get warm. Ramsey looked bad... he wasn't prepared for the hike since he had been told the weather wouldn't be like this. He was wetter than everyone and we knew he was borderline hypothermia. He stripped naked and everyone gathered up enough gear that he could wear and get warm. He's the kind of guy who's going to bark commands and make things happen. As soon as he got dryer stuff on he said, and I quote...
"Listen up. If we don't make a move, we're dead. I've never seen weather like this before in all my years and I've seen hypothermia before. Lesser men wouldn't have made it through that storm to this point, but we have to make a move. There was a door out there with a lock on it. Someone go out and see if you can break it." Greg and Gene left to see if they could find a way to break the lock since they were the warmest and driest. "Everyone else get geared up b/c if we can't break that lock we're going to have to head straight down, which I hope we don't have to do. Firstly the map shows that the trail down has a very steep grade so we'll have to climb and secondly I think it's snow/ice covered." Steep and ice don't mix well, especially in these conditions!
Ten minutes passed and I'll tell you what. We were all sitting there in silence and it was emotional. You looked around the room and you could see it in everyone's eyes. There were some bad thoughts going on in those heads. Personally, I actually shed a tear. Nobody saw it, but I surely did.
Finally Greg came screaming, "We're in!"
