The longer you hike in the Whites, the more it’s hammered into your head: “The trail will always be there.” Over the years, I’ve taken up the call myself, both in my own practice and as a reassurance to friends who have had to turn back or cancel their hike due to the weather or conditions in these unpredictable mountains.
In the past few years, I’ve joined “the elders” of the New England hiking community, watching out-of-state hikers flock to our mountains and scoff at the peaks’ relatively short summit trails and trailhead accessibility. I try not to let it bother me when they downplay the trails I call home, because I’ve witnessed it many times: how the unfamiliar and overzealous flock to our peaks, and stare up at them in mild amusement, unwilling to heed our warnings. I watch as they shake off my words and strap on their packs with complete disregard for the warnings plastered on the faded yellow signs at the trailhead.
The signs that say “STOP – this area ahead has the worst weather in America…” serves as nothing more than another photo opportunity. And then we all read about it and shake our heads as another news story reads, “They were unprepared, overwhelmed, and overtaken by the conditions that hammered them down the mountain on the backs of dozens of volunteers, lucky to be alive.”
Many have underestimated our round-topped peaks and lost their lives to them. Some of us know better than to test our own fate, and there are some, like myself, who have learned how quickly these mountains can overtake even the hikers repeating “the trail will always be there.” This is the story of when I put the pursuit of “the list” over my own safety, when I tried to dominate the mountains I call home.
I felt something inside my chest and settled on my shoulders when I stepped onto Crawford Path one day in early March. We’ve all experienced that unsettling feeling in our gut, when we know that something is about to happen, that we are taking a calculated risk, but we always assume that we will come out the other side. I made that same assumption as I passed the warning sign that said “STOP…”, pack cinched tight, spikes strapped on my feet, and ready to check off another set of trails in my attempt to redline the White Mountains of New Hampshire in a year.
The plan for the day was to ascend Crawford Path, a heavily trafficked trail leading to Mount Pierce, then continue on above treeline to the summit of Eisenhower, a taller peak standing at 4,780 feet, and then head down Edmands Path, completing a roadwalk to make a 12-14 mile loop. I had planned like I always do in winter, checking trail conditions and the higher summit forecast before heading out. I knew the likelihood of Edmands Path being hard-packed was nonexistent, but I had read a recent trip report that stated it was navigable by snowshoes. The weather above treeline was slated to be in the single digits without the windchill, and gusts to 50 mph were expected, conditions that I have hiked in before, although not the kind of conditions I would’ve normally set out in had I not been pursuing a single-year redline attempt.
As I made my ascent up the first three miles of trail, the knot in my stomach loosened. I breathed a sigh of relief, seeing signs of other hikers and realizing that I wasn’t going to be the only person on the trail. As a solo hiker, I try to choose trails in winter that I know are heavily trafficked. Just in case something did happen to me, I wouldn’t be stuck alone in the mountains. Seeing other people made me feel less nervous about going above treeline in strong winds and colder temperatures.
Before breaking treeline, I stopped and had a quick snack, knowing that as soon as I stepped out of the cover of trees I would be almost entirely exposed to the elements except for a few short breaks when the trail dipped. I choked down a half-frozen Clif Bar, swallowed a mouthful of water, and took a few steps from the shelter of the trees and into the bright sunlight.
As I made the push toward the trail junction where the Eisenhower Loop Trail takes you over the summit cone, and Crawford Path takes you around it, the knot in my stomach began to tighten again. With every gust of wind I felt my confidence waver, but I pressed on, looking up at the summit and the tiny dots of other hikers. “If they feel safe continuing on, then there’s nothing to be afraid of,” I told myself as the relentless winds sent snow swirling around me. By the time that I reached the junction, I wasn’t sure about making the final ascent a few hundred feet higher, where there would be no shelter from the cold that had already made a home in my core.
It was in the next two hours that I made the same mistakes many have made before and will make after me. I chose to ignore my gut instincts that told me to turn around, in pursuit of the list. They say the worst thing you can do when you’re in a dangerous situation is to panic, and whoever says that is correct. Despite appearing calm and content as I said hello to a few hikers at the Eisenhower Loop Trail junction, I was panicking at the conditions, but I refused to turn around. I needed to hike Edmands Path, and wind or no wind, I was going to find a way to the trail junction.
The first mistake happened when, in a semi-panic, I chose to attempt hiking the bad-weather cutoff around the summit cone, taking Crawford Path instead of my original plan, which was to ascend Eisenhower. In spite of my better judgment, I strapped on my snowshoes and began to make my way along the windblown and barely discernible path until I reached the dip into the krummholz. It was at this moment that I realized how bad an idea this was. I stood there trying to decipher a trail, took a few steps forward toward what I imagined might be a hint of a path, only to discover that I was standing on top of the stunted and gnarly trees. Sinking into the underbrush hidden by a blanket of unpacked snow was a risk that I was taking with every single step. I knew that falling into a spruce trap was a very real possibility if I continued forward, so I started to retrace my steps.
Making the short, gradual ascent toward the junction proved harder than it should have been. I was using a lot of my strength to hold myself together mentally, and wasn’t taking breaks or eating. I was too afraid to stop, knowing the conditions were cold enough to invoke hypothermia if I remained exposed for too long. When I got back to the Eisenhower Loop junction, my gut told me to call it, turn around, and try for Edmands Path another day, but I was too stubborn to turn around. I needed that trail and I had it stuck in my mind that I had to do it that day.
At the same junction where I made the first mistake, I made my second mistake. I squared my shoulders, bent into the wind, and pressed forward to make the final ascent of Eisenhower. By the time I reached the summit cairn, the winds were no longer intermittent. They were hammering nonstop, and with only sunglasses to protect my eyes, I scurried down the back side of the mountain as fast as I could. With every step downhill, I said a silent prayer, talking myself down from heightened panic that continued to increase with every step. I was barely holding it together by the time I got to the trail junction where Edmands Path veered to the left, no longer making rational decisions. Fight or flight had set in, and I had a singular goal: get below treeline as fast as I could. The closest treeline was down Edmands Path, so without taking into consideration the signs that the trail was blown over and indiscernible, I hurried down.
It didn’t take long to get to the tops of the scrub where the trail corridor sat below several feet of snow. I stood still for the first time in what felt like hours and stared ahead, trying to distinguish the trail with no luck. I felt panic well up and pour out of me in the form of tears that immediately froze to my cheeks. I had no other option but to turn around, but I was so exhausted that the idea of struggling back up Eisenhower was enough to send me off trail in an attempt to salvage a chance of making my way out of the cold.
I took less than five steps down the side of the mountain before my foot plunged into a spruce trap and sent me tumbling onto my side. What little clarity of mind I had left was lost in that spruce trap, and I broke out my satellite phone, intent on hitting the SOS.
I looked down at the yellow plastic device that with the push of a button would set off a series of events that would span over several interminable hours, hours that I would have to spend sitting there in the cold snow waiting for rescue. I thought about my friends who would most definitely be part of the rescue team and I flushed with embarrassment at the thought of them breaking out a trail to come rescue me because of my stubbornness. Was I really in a life-threatening situation? It felt like I was. But I hesitated over the button, and instead of sending out the SOS call, I took out my cell phone and realized I had service. Without giving it a second thought I punched my thumb onto my husband’s name and within seconds he was talking me out of my panic.
I’m convinced that his calm demeanor and rational thinking were what gave me the strength to draw my leg out of the spruce trap and haul my worn-out body back up to a flat spot on the side of the mountain where I could regroup. We talked through the situation and when I confirmed that I knew exactly where I was but that I was just really tired and didn’t want to climb Eisenhower again, he helped me realize that it was my only option. I got myself into this situation, and I still had food and water, warm clothes, and lots of daylight. What I needed to do was quite simple. I needed to eat some food, rest for a few minutes, suck it up, and re-climb Eisenhower.
So that’s exactly what I did.
I took a few minutes to rest, stayed on the phone with my husband to calm down more, and climbed back to the top of the mountain that I was dead set on not climbing again, down the back side, and was seated in my car less than three hours later. It was a bad situation, but it had only become an emergency because I made it one in my mind. But it all started because I didn’t listen to my gut and was too stubborn to turn around when that was exactly what I should have done at the Edmands Path junction.
In his book, Where You’ll Find Me, Ty Gagne tells the story of a woman who wasn’t so lucky. On paper she should’ve been more than qualified to make the right decisions, ones that would lead to her turning around at treeline when she reached Madison Spring Hut on that fateful day. But she was lacking in one critical aspect: solid decision-making skills. As someone who has hiked solo almost exclusively in the past six years, I had enough experience to make the right decision but I didn’t for one simple reason: stubbornness.
I look back on that day and it seems so silly that I was being stubborn and refused to re-climb Eisenhower until it came down to no other choice. The phrase experience is sometimes the best teacher continues to remain true in my own career as a solo hiker. With every difficult, frustrating, or scary experience I have on trail, I learn much more than I ever have during a pleasantly uneventful day in the woods.
This experience taught me about the importance of slowing down, remaining calm, and really taking a few minutes to assess the severity of the situation before reverting to a panic. It’s become something I’ve used on subsequent solo hikes. The trail will always be there, and thankfully I am still here to continue pursuing my dreams of hiking all the trails in the White Mountains.
