Since beginning my journey of hiking peaks I trekked amidst some truly wonderful terrain. By late 2000 I was ready to go from a 3-season hiker to a 4-season hiker. I’d already had one very memorable hike across Wildcat ridge in the eastern fringes of New Hampshire’s White Mountains in 1986. It was a tough day, my feet froze, I was exhausted and very nearly lost my appetite of being outdoors in the winter.
Fortunately I didn’t although it was many years before I returned to the white frosted slopes.
After a “little” training hike up Tecumseh the week before I was ready for some “unofficial” winter hiking. It sure looked and felt like winter as we (Steve Branchaud and me) drove up Rt-2 to Appalachia. I was amazed by the difference from a week ago. I’d even driven up to Thornton gap on Tripoli road (normally closed from November to May) right to Tecumseh trailhead and saw no snow at all just seven days before.
It was "wicked" cold. I found it hard to get out of the warm cab and step outside. A fairly large group had gathered in the parking lot and seemed to be gearing up. Steve and I quickly dressed, slung our packs and with a few light stretches were off.
I was wearing my new EMS gore-tex leather boots and had strung my new Tubbs snowshoes to my pack. There were only a few inches of dry snow but we wondered what it was like above. Our trail was the Airline; we quickly passed a snowmobile highway and were enjoying the few flat parts of the trail.
Unlike Valley way trail, the Airline quickly began to climb as I knew from the contour lines on the map and a summer hike a few years past. Our pace started out quick and our steps were light and sure amongst half frozen mud and rock. But quickly Steve began to slow down. “I’m going to put my gaiters on” he said. So I waited for a bit and then slowly began to walk up the trail to keep warm. I could barely hear the wind high above on the ridge. He caught up and then took over the lead. Pretty soon he stopped, “It’s these boots”, he exclaimed. “They’re too stiff!” He bent over and tried to adjust them and I moved on again, very slowly and even going up and down the trail to keep warm and limber.
A quick moving group was tramping up through the woods just then and I stepped off the trail as they passed. “Hi Mohamed!” He passed saying a quick “Hello!” I’d hiked with him in Colorado back in the summer, he was a nice guy. As the group passed I started up and realized I could’ve kept up to their pace pretty easily. Steve was really struggling by then.
He got within earshot and said, “My boots are bothering me.” “OK” I replied, “Do you want to lead?” “No” he said, “go on ahead.” And I did, I started up at a comfortable pace and soon realized Steve was far behind. I’d sit for a minute and wait while he got within view then take off again. This is nice for the person leading but not so nice for the person following.
I imagine he got frustrated at that but was silent about it. We were about two hours into it when he said, “I don’t think I’ll go much further.” My heart sank as the realization set in that we wouldn’t make a summit today. I think we were near a trail junction and he was thinking about heading down that trail to join up with Valley way and a descent to the trailhead.
“How about if we just try for treeline?” I asked as we stopped for a breather. He nodded, his head was down and he was hurting. We went past the trail junction and continued up the hard frozen slope. I was feeling great and the next hour or so was a fine march.
By 3-hours we still hadn’t made it to the open ridge and we were moving slower. The wind was wild above us. Trees that once stood 20 feet high and higher shrank until it seemed we were in a coniferous tunnel. Here we met up with the AMC group, most were relaxing, talking and preparing for the hike down.
I saw Mohamed there, “Did you go out on the ridge?” I had to practically shout over the wind. He shook his head no. By then Steve showed up and we went past them. Their leader was just coming off the ridge. I heard one of the members say, “I only made it out 4 cairns before turning back!” The leader stopped me and asked how far we were going. I thought for a moment, I knew the summit was way out of our reach and I said, “we might go as far as the hut.”
He shook his head, “you’ll have a hard time making it that far.” The wind was literally shaking the ground by then as it rumbled through the dense protective cover of balsam fir. He patted me on the back and off he went. Steve and I geared up for the exposed ridge. We left no skin exposed as we headed out.
Leaving the trees was like a child leaving the protective covers of his warm bed on a dark and cold night to go to the bathroom. You felt it like that; your security was down in the trees. Frosty and dangerous winds blew ferociously and one had to bend into it to remain on foot. We ventured out, one cairn, then another and another and another.
Frozen fog wrapped around us and shut out any views forward. From here you should at least see Mt Quincy Adams and the wide panorama of Kings Ravine and Mt Jefferson. We saw only white, our world was no more than a hundred feet in any direction. Still we moved onward grasping rocks and anything to stay upright.
I can’t believe just how quickly your skin can freeze in these conditions. I tried to take a glove off to get a picture of Steve. We were near a sign and I held onto it with one arm while pulling the camera out. My hand was instantly tingling with pain and I thrust the now cold glove back over my hand. Steve did manage to get a picture; it’s in an album and tells the story of how bad it was that day.
We were at the Upper Bruin trail by then and had decided to abandon our try at Madison hut. I’d looked at the map before venturing onto the ridge and knew it was a good bailout point. What we found was a narrow and steep trail that held the snow blowing off the ridge.
I led and was quickly mired in it up to my waist and even deeper. We struggled and worked hard to get out of it and down the trail. I noticed my hand was no longer cold. We slid and fell a few times going down Upper Bruin but it did connect onto the upper reaches of Valley way. I considered climbing the last steep part up to Madison col but we were just too spent by then. A couple of hikers were just coming down off the col and an unsuccessful bid of Mount Madison. We spoke briefly to the father daughter team as they quickly headed down VW trail from the col.
Steve and I stowed some of the gear that probably saved us from minor frostbite on Durant ridge and started down. I put on a pair of instep crampons remembering a hike that Scott Morton and I had done a year or two ago. I’d fallen so many times that I had bruises on my bruises back then. The insteps worked brilliantly.
The one thing I hadn’t counted on was the exhaustion. We stopped and ate some frozen food on a snow covered rock, I drank some slushy water. It helped some but the hike down was long and monotonous. We were both plenty glad to see his truck parked there at the end of the day. Steve grimaced as he pulled his stiff leather mountaineering boots off. I could see the painful blisters.
I came through it pretty well. I gained a good deal of respect for the mountain and for the extremes of winter. In another 4 months I would be back here for an official winter attempt of Adams via Lowe’s path. We were successful on that early March day; the conditions were rare, warm and no wind. But I’ll never forget that November hike, it goes down as one of the most adventurous hikes ever despite falling short of the summit.