Mount Washington Continued

Once we rose above the treeline, the temperature fell dramatically, the wind picked up and we started hiking through snow. After a few hours, we all really wished that we had water with us instead of beer. The hiking became considerably more difficult as the slope of the mountain increased. I'm not sure when it happened, but to make matters worse, we deviated from the trail. The reality of the situation that we were in started to hit me. I was feeling a real bad headache and dehydrated and wished that I was sleeping back at the bed and breakfast.

This situation didn't seem to affect one of the guys that we had with us. At one point, we were close to a cliff that I believe led to Tuckerman's Ravine. He seemed to be really enjoying the scenery close to the edge. I wouldn't consider this a major problem but the wind was howling at about 40-50 MPH and he seemed to be swaying back and forth. One good gust of the wind and he could have been another fatality of Tuckerman's Ravine. Luckily, this didn't happen.



Now that we were off the trail, we had to do some simple climbing up the mountain at some points. While it wasn't difficult, it certainly wasn't something that I expected on this hike. One of the guys with us slipped and managed to twist his ankle. Of course, we had no first aid equipment with us so we couldn't tape his foot. He had to continue the climb up the mountain to survive.