WHERE WINTER LIVES
Winter Catalogue Essay for Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS)

The average daily temperature in January hovers around 4 degrees Fahrenheit, with winds blowing at an average speed of more than 45 miles per hour (gusting to hurricane force regularly). Fog and blowing snow can reduce visibility to 200 feet or less. The wind chill equivalent frequently dips to -50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mount Washington Observatory

The summit ridge of New Hampshire's Presidential Range is socked in. The air temperature hovers around 0 degrees, the wind blows at a steady thirty to forty miles per hour with occasional stronger gusts, and heavy snow zips horizontally through the air.

The flakes slam into me like Styrofoam pellets, bounce off, and go streaking on their way. All-in-all, it's a fairly run-of-the-mill midwinter day on Mount Washington, at 6,288 feet the highest peak in the Northeastern United States and the centerpiece of the 770,000-acre White Mountain National Forest.

Darby Field of Exeter, New Hampshire, made the first recorded ascent of Mount Washington in 1642. Since then countless others have made the climb, including many world-class mountaineers who train here because the conditions on the mountain are so challenging. The peripatetic Henry David Thoreau tramped these peaks in 1839 and again in 1858. On the latter trip Thoreau took a nasty spill when he slipped on a steep patch of snow -- in July .

The oldest hiking trail in The United States, the Crawford path, was blazed on Mount Washington in 1819, and today, adventuring in the Presidentials is more popular than ever. Although we seem to have the summits all to ourselves on this journey, some seven million people visit the White Mountain National Forest each year –more than converge upon Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks combined.

A hundred years ago, few would have foreseen these mountains becoming such a popular destination. Back then, the mountainsides were blighted and barren from cut-and-run logging. And then the fuel-rich slash piles left behind by the loggers ignited, causing enormous and highly destructive fires. The era of waste and desolation ended in 1911 with the passage of the Weeks Act, legislation authorizing the federal purchase of private lands. The law ultimately led to the creation of the White Mountain National Forest and the recovery of these once bleak and depressing scenes.

Right now, typical day or not, I feel like I am standing precisely in the center of a raging tempest. Somewhere just off to my left, but hidden in the storm, is the summit of Mount Washington . Somewhere not very far ahead of me is Joe Lentini, mountain guide and long-time director of the EMS Climbing School in North Conway , New Hampshire . And somewhere not very far behind me is the rest of our little group –Liz, Sophie, Grant, and Paul. We are attempting to complete a midwinter traverse of the mountain range that is notorious for being home to some of the world's most dangerous weather.

In these conditions every step is a well-thought-out process. I place one foot forward, setting the teeth of my crampons securely into the ice. Without them I would skitter and slide over the frost-shattered and rime-ice coated shards of the ridge. Then, planting my ski poles ahead and to the sides, I brace against the frigid jackhammer blasts. Like the outriggers on a Tahitian canoe, the poles keep me from capsizing.

At this moment, I don't need anyone to remind me that the winter weather in the Presidential Range is simply ferocious, and that the brutal conditions here accurately mimic what only the Polar Regions and the highest mountains on earth experience. Winter temperatures up here are frequently far below zero Fahrenheit. The lowest temperature ever recorded on Mount Washington was a brisk 47 degrees below, and the mercury can dip into the minus-40 range anytime during the months of December, January, February, and March. To make matters even more challenging, these frigid temperatures are frequently accompanied by very high winds that can send the wind-chill factor plummeting and flash-freeze any exposed skin.

These fierce winter winds regularly top 100 miles per hour, once blowing at a record-setting, anemometer-smashing 231 miles per hour –the highest surface wind speed ever clocked on Earth. That gust was more than three times the speed of a hurricane (a hurricane is a wind of 74 miles per hour or greater). Midwinter winds average between 40 and 50 miles per hour on a daily basis, and hurricane gusts are measured four or five times per week on average.

And just to top things off, there's the snow. Generally, four or five feet of snow piles up during each winter month. Nearly 570 inches of snow fell on Mount Washington during the winter of 1968-1969, still the all-time record for a single year. And by springtime it is not unusual for 70, 80, and even 100 feet of wind-deposited snow to accumulate in Tuckerman Ravine, on the east side of the range.

The heavy snow causes catastrophic avalanches not only in the steep, treeless areas but in the lower wooded areas as well. The deep snow in the forest obscures hiking trails and blazes; while up high the blowing, drifting snow can limit visibility to a matter of a few feet in any direction and bury the rock cairns marking the trails above tree line.

The result of these violent meteorological conditions is a moonscape of rock, ice, and of course snow. Little besides tiny ground-hugging arctic tundra vegetation survives. That's no surprise, since this is the arctic, ecologically speaking. In the Presidential Range, every 400-foot elevation gain is comparable to traveling 100 miles north. We have climbed some 5,000 feet since starting our journey down in the valley far below, making our ascent equivalent to trekking some 1,300 miles north to the Canadian Arctic.

Naturally, I'm not thinking about any of this. I'm thinking about how easy it would be to get lost, turned around, and wander off forever into the storm, never to be seen again. Not only do we have virtual whiteout conditions, but of course my goggles are fogging up and the lenses are glazing over. By tilting my head back I can peer through a small patch of clear lens that hasn't yet iced-up. With this view, I can vaguely make out the murky shapes of rocks and boulders and place my feet safely, one at a time. Oddly enough, the pummeling wind helps me to navigate these vertiginous conditions. Because the gale is blowing out of the west it is slamming my right side with body-blows, keeping me on a southerly course, steady as she goes.

I almost walk smack into a big rock. Stopping, I tilt my head back and discover that it isn't a rock, it's Joe Lentini.

"Oh, hi Joe!" I shout to be heard over the wind. "I thought you were a rock!"

I raise my goggles to get a better look at him. Mountain Guide extraordinaire, long-time leader of the North Conway search and rescue team, and veteran of Himalayan ascents, he appears to be enjoying himself. With a devilish grin and eyes flashing through the amber lenses of his goggles, he leans over against the wind and screams in my ear “You know, it's crazy, but I love this stuff!”

Mark Twain once said about New England 's weather, “If you don't like it, wait five minutes.” When we started this traverse two days ago, freezing rain was falling in the valleys. As we began the ascent the conditions turned to lightning and hail. A short time later the temperature plunged and heavy snow began to fall. South of the mountains and in the region's cities, the winter has once again been marked by wild temperature fluctuations. But up here in the mountains we have a full-blown blizzard. If winter has a home, it is right here. This is where winter lives.

I flash back to yesterday, the six of us huddled among the boulders on the shoulder of Mount Adams like soldiers in a foxhole, with chunks of ice and snow whizzing past us as if shot from cannons. Yesterday was different. It was clear, 20 below zero, and with 60-mile-per-hour winds gusting even higher. Yesterday, in our relatively sheltered position, we could lean into the wind with all our weight and it would hold us up. But looking off toward Mount Jefferson and Mount Clay, we could see things were different over there. There the wind was shrieking across the Ridge of the Caps, driving before it an enormous billowing cloud of snow rising hundreds of feet into the air. It was terrifying to look at. It seemed nothing human could survive out there.

Not everyone does survive the Presidential Range. Although most of the thousands who climb and ski here every year experience no problems, many people seriously underestimate these peaks, probably because of their modest height. But any misstep or miscalculation up here could be your last. Since 1849, when a young Englishman named Frederick Strickland lost his way in an October storm and perished, the mountain has claimed some 125 lives.

As Joe and I crouch behind a boulder on the ridge, waiting for the others to emerge from the chaos, I reflect on how surprisingly warm and comfortable I feel despite the weather. With the proper layers and shell garments well-matched to the environmental conditions, I have managed to maintain my equatorial temperature despite the mountain's polar efforts to rob me of my precious heat. I feel good about that, but I don't gloat over my success so far. I can't afford to lose focus or make a mistake. I'm just glad I had the sense to bring the right equipment and go with the right partners.

Like ghostly apparitions, four other-worldly figures take shape out of the storm. Together again, we hold a conference in the lee of the big rock and decide to get off this big rock pile and duck down into the cozy confines of Tuckerman Ravine. Picking out the safest route, Joe leads us through waist-deep drifts down the east side of the ridge to tree line a thousand feet below.

As darkness gathers into an inky night, we pitch the tents by the light of our headlamps. Snowflakes drift through the beams, mesmerizing us in our exhausted state. But it feels great to be so physically tired, to finally sit down and eat a warm meal, to speak without shouting against the wind. Down here in the ravine all is quiet and peaceful, but already I miss the excitement and intensity of the high peaks.

"Hey," says Joe between mouthfuls of some freeze-dried delicacy, "I'm leading a summit attempt on Saturday. Want to come along?"

Head back up there? I think. Back up into the blizzard? After days of being buffeted by storms, I find that I am subconsciously still leaning into the wind. I straighten up, put down my steaming bowl, and consider for a moment.

"Sure Joe," I say. "I love this stuff!"

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