National Park After Dark - Surviving the Worst Weather on the Planet: White Mountain National Forest

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

This week we are heading back to our home state of New Hampshire. This little state is full of big surprises as it is known for the worst weather on the entire planet. In January of 1982 two teenage climbers headed out to ice climb and summit but a horrible storm rolled in bringing snow, 140 mph winds and negative temperatures. When the Mountain Rescue Service goes out to help them, they find themselves in their own mission for survival.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Thank you so much to our partners, check them out! BetterHelp: Get 10% off online therapy Evite: Create your custom invites for any event!Chirp Wheel: Use our discount code NPAD for 10% off For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and swim in their warm lakes during the summer. For someone not from New England, you might not be able to distinguish the difference between Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Maine. Maybe New England to you is just Boston. But if you were to ask me, New Hampshire is home. the live-free or die state, that small little triangle in the northeast. The springs here are wet and rainy. And then the summer comes and the entire state flourishes with flowers and bright green leaves,

singing birds and rushing waterfalls. Fall arrives in some of the most beautiful foliage you've ever seen resides here. And then winter hits. The leaves have all fallen. and the state is blanketed in snow. Holiday lights fill up small towns. Everyone is bundled up in cozy jackets and carrying warm drinks. It's a cozy and quiet part of the year.

While many towns go into hibernation, the ski towns of northern New Hampshire come alive. People drive for hours to get up north into the tall peaks of the White Mountains. it almost seems impossible that you can go from sea level to snow-cap beautiful mountains and granite notches in just a few hours. But here it is, right in New Hampshire. Here also lives the tallest peak on the eastern border, Mount Washington. During the winter, it attracts hikers, snowshoers, backcountry skiers, and ice climbers. and when you enter these slopes, you leave the quaint, cozy New England vibe that you've known,

and you head straight into the most dangerous wilderness in the east. With each step you take closer to the summit, you head closer and closer into the alpine zone. And it's here you have to be the most worried, because not only are you heading above tree level, but you're heading straight into the worst weather conditions. on the entire planet and 167 people who headed into this zone didn't survive. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session.

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Welcome back to National Park After Dark. Happy holidays. We hope you had a great New Year's. Yes, happy new year. It's 2022. We had a great 2021 because of this podcast. Yeah, it really made a huge difference. And how far we've grown since, because we started.

our first episode ever aired on January 25th, I think, 2021. So we're almost a full year into this, which is crazy. Yeah, it's been a wild ride. And we wanted to say thank you so much. We have a lot of things planned for 2022 for the show. And we hope that everyone is as excited as we are to continue growing with the show and exploring more stories. Yeah, you know, we've really just been reflecting on our journey this past year with the podcast and the directions it's taken and it's just so exciting to be here and to be a year later and to have all your support. So we just wanted to say a big, big, thank you. We wouldn't have made it this far or made this money episodes without all of your support and love with us. So thank you very much. Yes. And Cassie is taking us somewhere very

near and dear to both of our hearts for this episode. And that's New Hampshire. We're going to New Hampshire. I finally found a reason to come here. I'm really, really excited. We're going to a national forest, not a national park, but we do national forest sometimes, and there's just so much cool, interesting history in northern New Hampshire. And I also feel like New Hampshire is kind of forgotten about, you know? I would say that's largely true,

because out of all the places that I've been traveled to or lived in, a lot of people don't even know where it is on a map or that it's even a state. Yeah. Oh my God. It's so funny because I've literally had people be like, for example, I was in North Dakota a few months ago and this guy, he asked me where I was from. And I said, wow, I'm from New Hampshire. He's like, oh, yeah, that's somewhere down south, right? So wrong. No.

And another time I had someone asking where I was from and I'm like, I'm from New Hampshire. They go, oh, cool, what state is that in? I've had that type of conversation so many times that if someone doesn't know where it is or what? whatever, and I just get the vibe from the person, I'll be like, I'm from Boston. I was just going to say, do you say you're from Boston? Because it's so much easier. Everyone knows where Boston is, but I feel like New Hampshire is very largely forgotten about, and it's a really cool little corner of the country. So I think it's a fun idea to go there, and it's home. Right. And I'm glad because I've been feeling a little homesick lately, so I am ready to be there mentally tonight.

I have two, actually. I mean, I know I'm just in Vermont, but I've been missing the White Mountains a lot recently. I haven't hiked there that much this year, which is a big contrast to last year. I was up in the White Mountains almost every week. I'm excited to go back there. I found some interesting stories. I found a lot of interesting facts about Northern New Hampshire that I'm excited to talk about, too. Yes. So really quick, I guess, before we get going, Cassie and I were talking about this the other day. In regards to our last episode, which took place on Molokai, we had a discussion about the native Hawaiian language. why it was banned and kind of just asking for details from listeners if they had any inside information. And we had a listener that goes by AJ from Patreon who messaged us and they gave us the lowdown.

So essentially, I'm not going to read their whole message because it was quite long, even though we really appreciated that. But essentially, they lived in Hawaii for 17 years, I believe, and they told us a lot about how the language was banned and how they enforced it was if they caught you, the government caught you either speaking it or even dancing hula or doing traditional native activities, then you would have a huge fine, like up to $10,000 type of fine. And you couldn't be speaking it or writing it or doing anything like that. Also in the episode, I had asked if the language had been lost because of this. And they cleared that up a little bit that people were secretly still speaking the language.

And now today it's being brought back in studies around the island to try and bring the whole language back. So it's not a completely dead language. It's something that is still spoken and people are still trying to learn and keep the language alive, which I thought was really cool because this kind of information, we can Google things all day. But when we hear from our listeners, firsthand experience, that's the kind of stuff we like to hear about. So if you know stuff about a place that we're talking about because you live there or you have family from there or whatever, always let us know. We always love to learn about it. Yeah.

The doctor I worked with, I spoke with her about it a little bit at work after the episode aired. She speaks Hawaiian so brilliantly. And she's from the island and has family that lives on the island. I just assumed that she had been born and raised knowing it. And so I asked her about it and she said, no, I actually had the chance to, when I was in school, to either take Japanese, Spanish, or Hawaiian, and I chose Japanese. And she's like, which is in hindsight, I don't know why I did that. And now I don't even really know much, but she learned the language later on in life. I just thought that was cool too.

and she kind of corrected me a little bit on some of the words I mispronounced. And like, Dr. Oh, no. I'm trying. But it's like a firsthand. Yeah. But she's cool. Yeah. And I mean, if we do ever mispronounce anything, it's definitely we're not trying to be disrespectful in any regard.

Like, we're trying really hard to research these things and we practice pronouncing them. But sometimes languages are, some languages are a lot harder just because we don't speak them and we didn't grow up learning the alphabet that way. we're trying really hard and we try to be as respectful as possible. And it's always nice to have someone who can correct you because they really know. And then it's like, oh, thank you. Like I want to know how to say it. I'm really trying. But it's always a learning curve. Right. And here's the beautiful thing about today. We're from New Hampshire, okay? And we can speak how we want to speak and talk how we want to talk. And we're going to pot the car and have a yard. And we're going to the mountains. And that's just how we speak in New Hampshire. So I'm ready. I know that's a little.

bit of a Boston thing, but we're from southern New Hampshire. The Boston accent and New England accent is kind of like that. Ours isn't so strong. But yeah. Anyway, we're going home. We're going to New Hampshire. We're going to New England. So the White Mountain National Forest is located in northern New Hampshire, and it covers 750,852 acres of land. It is in New Hampshire, but it also goes into Maine as well. And it's managed by the U.S. Forest Service. There's a lot of hiking here. People go skiing, cross-country skiing, biking. There's a lot of outdoor activities here. There's over 1,200 miles of hiking trails and 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail are in the White Mountains. There are a ton of people who visit here every single year. There's actually 6 million people, to be exact, who visit every single year, which is wild. That means that it has more visitors than Chandonah, Acadia. and New River Gorge combined. Is a lot of that during leaf peeping season?

I don't know. That's a good question. So leaf peeping for everybody is like the foliage, the fall foliage. I feel like that's got to be a huge time. I mean, obviously the summer, because of all the activities, but I just feel like for the sheer number, I don't know. I just get that feeling. I don't know because summer in northern New Hampshire, you're sitting in traffic for a long time. in the summer if you go on the weekend because people are up there for the 4th of July,

people go to Lake Lake Memphis. There's all the hiking. Everyone's doing. There's 48 peaks in the White Mountain National Forest and they're over 4,000 feet. So it's widely said like, oh, we're completing the 4,000 footers. So there's a lot of people who had there for that reason too. So I imagine that it's probably a combination between summer and fall, which are the main times. Yeah, for sure.

It is a national forest. It was established in the year 1918, and it was established as a national forest because of something known as the Weeks Act, which was enacted in 1911. So basically, this act was a federal law that was passed by Congress that was later signed by the president William Howard Taft. And essentially what this law said was that the government had the right to purchase private property if it was for conservation efforts based on water sources. There was extreme logging in New Hampshire that was going on because people are industrializing, especially in the south. And because of all the trees that they were cutting down, there was a ton of erosion happening around the water sources that were then destroying buildings. And I was reading in Manchester, New Hampshire was a town city that was really affected by it. So the government said, you know, we really need to protect the logging and conserve and do what we need because we're ruining our towns. And it's just going to extend further and further up north. So they decided to establish it as a national forest.

The funny thing about this law, too, is that it was actually largely influenced by the big burn in Idaho that we talked about in the other episode. About Ed Polansky. Is that his— Pulaski. Pulaski. Yeah, Ed Pulaski. So because of how many people died in the forest fires and the mismanagement of the U.S. Forest Service, they were trying to create a governing force that could manage national force better. Gotcha.

I love when things tie in to other episodes. It's like we're building our knowledge base as we go on. Yeah, it's like, remember back in this. Right. Like we can reference other episodes and other stories that we've learned about. And it's just like all building on one another. And it's fun to progress. in our learning.

Yeah, and to see how everything's so linked, too. Yeah. This was established as a National Forest, but a lot of people, because there's over 6 million people that visit every single year, have asked this question, why isn't the White Mountain National Forest and National Park instead? And there's actually a couple of reasons.

The first one is that the government started buying land for the National Forest in 1914, which was two years before the National Park Service was established. So they were kind of already in the works for this to become a national force before the National Park Service existed. Okay. So there were national parks before the actual service was formed? Yeah, there were. And before the National Park Service was formed, they had people like the Department of War that would manage national parks and the Department of Agriculture. Okay, the Department of Agriculture seems like a better fit if we had to choose than the Department of War. of war. And as we have kind of talked about the Buffalo soldiers were obviously doing work in the

national parks before the actual Rangers. Yeah, before the actual National Park Service was established, which I'm sure we will do a full episode on because it's so interesting and a kind of a lost part and history of the National Park Service as far as common knowledge goes. But I didn't know that the National Park Service was so kind of late in the game. It seems like, what happened was they're like, we need to preserve land. And they're like, okay, let's do it. And then they're like, wait, who's going to, who's going to run this? So they just kind of like gave it to people. And another reason of why the White Mountains are not a national park is because the White Mountain National Forest has a ton of ski resorts. You know, there's like Loon and Adetash and you don't

see that. There's not a ski resort in the middle of glacier. Yeah, that's true. And a big distinguishing factor between national parks and national flor. forests are that national parks are created to preserve land and national forests are set aside for conservation uses of the land. But I just thought it was really interesting that people had brought that question up. But it does seem like a lot of times that it has been brought up, it's been squash. It's like, nope, it's not, it's not becoming a national park. We're very happy with how the US Forest Service is handling everything. We don't want to make it into a park. Makes sense. Yeah, and you know, there is a lot of wildlife here and they are protected as well.

in certain areas and there's hunting regulations, you know, there's bald eagles there, there's black bears, there's river otters, foxes, there's moose up in the white mountains, which I personally have never seen up there. But they do exist. That's funny because I haven't either. I've seen them on my way to and from when I went to school in Keene. I would come home, you know, obviously every once in a while. And the only moose in New England I've ever seen was on that drive. I've never seen a moose in New Hampshire. My first moose I ever saw was when I moved to Jackson, Wyoming.

First time. It's just so weird. Actually, like, I think it was last winter, the winter before. So we live on a dead end street, my family home. And it's literally right next to a big nature preserve. And so it's not out of the norm to hear coyotes at night. And there's a lot of wildlife activity. and I've never seen them, but there's been moose tracks up and down my street and all of that.

So I know they're around. It's just, I mean, people are always like, you want to see a moose? Like, go up to the King of Angus Highway. I'm like, I've literally never seen them there. It's like, I've been there many times. Thank you. Yeah. So, yeah, that's funny. I've never seen one up there. It's just southern New Hampshire. I've seen them. Yeah, that's so funny. They're around. They're around. And I know, like, I've never gone. out for long periods of time and you can even do tours like up in north conway i can literally book tours where they will take you where these moose are so they were probably a better resource than we are since we haven't seen them but anyway we are going to be heading back to the year 1892 and we are

going to be talking about a rescue mission that happened of two climbers who went up to mount washington to climb and had to be rescued and mount washington if you do you don't know that much about it. Mount Washington is the highest mountain in the northeast. It's 6,289 feet, but this mountain has the worst weather in the entire world. It's worse than Mount Everest. It's worse than Antarctica. It's worse than Russia, which is wild, right in New Hampshire. You would never think it. Look at it. It doesn't look any different than the surrounding mountains. Like, yeah, it is the tallest, but there are other large peaks up there. Yeah, so the Mount Washington Observatory up there

has actually been recording hourly weather since 1932, and it recorded the highest wind speeds that were ever recorded for a long time. It held the record for 62 years at 231 miles per hour, which was recorded on April 12, 1934. And not only is it extremely windy up here, it's also very, very cold. So it has recorded some of the lowest temperatures ever recorded at negative 47 degrees Fahrenheit, which is negative 43.9 degrees Celsius.

And it's actually the second coldest place on the planet. Other than Antarctica? No, actually, the coldest place on the planet is in Canada. Oh, well, I'm actually not surprised. Yeah. Before you go on, just one more thing about the wind. Do you know why it's so? like what makes Mount Washington out of all the peaks in the 48?

Yeah, so that's a really good question. And the reason why it's so windy in comparison to others is because, one, it's taller than the other peaks in the White Mountain National Forest. But there are a thousand miles where it's uninterrupted wind. There's nothing blocking it. And also what contributes to this too is that there's three wind currents that go across America. And all three of them intersect over the White Mountains. So this just creates like this huge wind possibility that happens right on Mount Washington.

It's like the perfect storm. It's just, all the conditions are just right to make it an extreme weather location. The Washington Observatory actually has a museum called the Extreme Weather Exhibit. Well, there we go. There it is. Mount Washington is one of the most dangerous mountains in the White Mountain Range. there have been 167 people who have lost their lives here, and on average, there's 25 search and rescue missions every single year. But that being said, here, there's tons of hiking, there's lots of trails,

there's ice climbing, there's rock climbing, there's backcountry skiing, backcountry snowboarding. It's a really dangerous area that is filled with adventure and attracts really adventurous people. And in January, 1982, it attracted Hugh Heur and Jeff Batser. They were from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and they decided that they wanted to make the trip a few hours, go up there. They were ice climbers. They were rock climbers. And actually, Hugh He had been a climber his entire life. He had started as young as eight years old.

And he was climbing things in the Canadian Rockies, you know, things that stood over 11,000 feet in elevation. at just the age of 17 years old, he had been acknowledged as one of the best climbers in the United States. So he was very experienced. He did a lot with such a short amount of time. Only 17. Wow. Yeah. He's dedicated.

And Jeff, he was also a really good climber. He worked really hard to stay in shape. You know, he was working out every single day. And the two of them would practice climbing in Pennsylvania. They would find frozen walls and things like that down there. Nothing that compared to Mount Wally. Washington. So obviously Mount Washington was a huge draw for them because it would be such a challenge. So they headed up in late January of 1982 and they were planning to rock climb here, but they also

wanted to summit the mountain. They had plans to hike up Washington into the Huntington Ravine. And this is an area of Mount Washington that was formed many, many years ago back when there was a glacier essentially there. And it was formed by glacial erosion. And it was formed in to this like amphitheater like valley and mount washington actually has four other areas like this but huntington ravine is the steepest and it has the highest headwall to climb all of the portions of of this headwall require climbing gear and it's rated for experience climbers only hugh and jeff had planned out their climbing route before they left and they were planning to do odell's gully and this is a really popular climbing route on the mountain but it's dangerous there's multiple avalanche zones there

So depending on the conditions and the weather, it can be really dangerous to go up here. I have zero experience on Mount Washington in the winter. I just haven't crossed that bridge yet. Yeah, me either. I've actually hiked Mount Washington a few times, but not in the winter. And Al likes to go there to snowboard, and he goes up to Tuckerman's ravine, which is also known for avalanches. And several people have died up there from them.

And he's straight out how it's told me, like, you haven't taken avalanche, horses, you can't come. Like, okay, that's fair. Well, good for him. Drawing a boundary. I mean, that's responsible. I think it's also his like, alone time. He's like, you can't come. But it really is. Like, you know, I don't have avalanche training. I haven't been out there. Not at all. When they got to New Hampshire, it was early on a Friday evening and they reached Pinkham Notch Visitor Center. And this was their stop before they would begin their adventure. It was where they would check in, let them know where they were going to go on the trail before they headed out. So they did that, which is smart. Of course, check in, tell people where you are. And then they were heading to

Harvard Cabin, which was a cabin at the base of Huntington Ravine. This is a backcountry shelter. It's only open during the wintertime. It's open from December 1st to April 1st. And it's open for the public climbers, skiers, hikers can come there. And it's operated by the US Forest Service. So there is someone who is a caretaker that stays there to do minimal activities there because there isn't plumbing. There's not. It's very off-grid. There's a stove there. There's some places to sleep. And then there's some campsites outside that you can stay at, but it's very, very off-grid. It's very rustic. Yeah. Rustic is a good word. So they get up there and they get there pretty late in the evening. They cook up some food, get their stuff together, talk about their plans for the morning. You know,

they're really, really stoked to be there and they go to bed. It was the next morning. They got up early. and at 7 a.m., the cabin receives news of the conditions of that day. You know, they tell them the weather avalanche possibilities, things like that, just to check in with people to be safe. And they got the report and they said a storm is coming, a pretty big storm is coming later this afternoon. And they decided, okay, we got to get out here fast. Let's go.

Let's hike up. We got a little bit and we'll climb up and get back down. So they moved as quickly as they could because they had plans to summon. at Mount Washington as well. And they moved up this ice wall so fast. They're really experienced. It took them 90 minutes to scale around a thousand feet of ice before they made it to the top. That is so insane. And it's crazy that you're talking about this right now because today I went on a first day hike, Mount Hood National Forest, and we went to this waterfall area. And there was these huge sheets of ice hanging down. And I was thinking about

the movie The Alpinist and how he would obviously he was free soloing so it's a little different but still it's sketchy it's scary it's totally a different medium for climbing than rock which is already terrifying so to know that they're scaling that in that little amount of time it just shows the skill that they have yeah and they're 17 there's 17 out here doing this yeah that's that's nuts like I was not that cool. No. No, let's not even talk about what I was doing at 17. It's probably embarrassing. Just know we were not that cool at 17. I don't think we are either right now. And we're still not that cool or experienced. But they're out there. They're doing their thing, which I think is awesome. And they get up there really fast. But by the time they had finished this and they did this in 90

minutes, the storm had already come in. There was snow coming down really fast. Their visibility was going, but they were dead set on getting to the top of Mount Washington. It was one of their goals for when they got here. The winds had picked up. It was snowing heavy, but they decided that they needed to go. So they decided that the best way to do it was if they dropped some of their gear to make it faster. So they emptied their gear out of all of their heavy stuff because they had overnight equipment with them. You know, their sleeping bags, tents, whatever they had. They took the minimal things like water, some layers of clothes that they might need, but they're like, let's hike up, let's just run up, run back down, we'll be down in a second. They had a whole plan to get down. They

they were going to do the Lionhead's Trail, which was a safer way to go down than they came up because they didn't need climbing gear to do that. And they were less than 1,500 feet from the summit. So they're like, we can't not summit. We're here. Well, I'm sure they feel very confident as well. I mean, they just scaled that whole thing in 90 minutes. So to them, it's kind of like, what's another 1,500 feet? Exactly. As they got closer and closer to the summit, though, the weather only worsened. And the snow was falling so heavily now that it was hard to see anything past their own wrists. It was a complete whiteout. To make things worse, the wind speeds had picked up even more now. And it was reaching 140 miles per hour. And it was blowing them off their balance and off of the trail. Oh, shh. So they're in trouble now and they realize that they're not at the summit yet and they decided we have to turn around. We can't do this. This is too bad. This is too scary. We got to go. So as they're descending, they started periodically yelling to each other to make sure that they were still with each other because it was so bad. It was such a whiteout. They couldn't see each other. That is just crazy to think about and how quickly it turned. And that's the weather up there on Mount Washington is it can like that. It's just, you know, it changes. and at one point they stopped and realized they couldn't find their previous footsteps. They realized that they were lost. And at this point, they had left their compass with all their overnight gear.

And they didn't even know what direction they were facing because they couldn't see anything. Oh, my God. And they're just so they're almost at the summit, right? So there's no trees, no nothing for shelter. It's just like open, relentless, snow and wind. And you're just in this complete. white out you have no idea which ways up or down or where you are. Yeah. Once you get past 4,400 feet, you're in the alpine zone. So brush gets a lot shorter. So there's no protection. There's nowhere to go.

They're stuck up there. Now they're lost. And eventually as they're stumbling around and they're in snow. Like they're in snow that at times reaches as deep as their chest, but was mostly somewhere around their hip area. But that's so much snow. Yeah, that's still intense to try. travel through in the best of conditions. Never mind this. Yeah. And so they are walking, they're stumbling around, and they come across a stream. You're like, you know, this is going to lead downhill somewhere. This is going to lead us in the direction that we're trying to get to. And we can figure it out later when we're out of this weather. So they start to follow it. As they're following it, though, Hugh fell into the stream. And he got soaked from his knees down. He climbed out as quickly as

he could, but it was too late and he was drenched in water. And the temperatures at this point were almost negative 20 degrees. Oh my gosh. The worst part is they kept moving. They're like, we got to go like keep moving, keep moving. And he fell into the stream again. Oh, God. Can't catch a break. Can't catch a break. No. No. And Jeff, he realizes how much trouble he's in if he's soaked. so he pulls out an extra layer that he has of wool pants to give to him. But it was too late. I mean, he had been soaked at this point and he was starting to freeze. And now nighttime was falling.

They were still lost. They hadn't managed to retrace their steps or find their year that they had left behind. Their only option now was to build a snow cave, get inside for the night, and just huddled together and try to stay warm. And that's what they did. In a small hole, they sheltered in from the wind and they huddled. together for the night, but Hugh's legs had already began to freeze. Meanwhile, back at Harvard Cabin, the caretaker Matt Pierce, began to get really concerned

about Jeff and Hugh. He saw how bad the conditions were. He knew what their plans were, and he knew that it would probably take longer because of the weather. But it was getting really late now. You know, it was dark. He hadn't heard anything. And he was getting really worried, so when it got late enough, he decided that it was time to call search and rescue. On Mount Washington, the Mountain Rescue Service is comprised of all volunteers. Despite that they're all volunteers, though, they're all extremely experienced. They're world-class guides and climbers, and they stay on call 24 hours a day during all four seasons of the year. They're skilled in multi-day and nighttime searches. They conduct technical rope rescues off cliffs, water rescue

assistance and they also do life evacuations. The first person to receive this call was Joe Lintini. He's a rescuer from a nearby town and he had been volunteering for about five years at this point. It was the middle of the night when he got the call and they said, two climbers missing. We don't know where. Then 28 year old Albert received the same call and he immediately gets up. He's ready to help. Albert was an extremely talented climber, and he had signed up for the Mountain Rescue Service because he felt that this was the place that he could really make a difference and help save people's lives. It also was an added bonus that it happened to be in the most beautiful and adventurous area in the entire northeast. But he got this call and he's like, okay, let's go, despite seeing how horrible these conditions were. Isn't it amazing that there are people like that, like in all walks of life, just people who are ready to, not to say that they don't say,

second guess things, but they prioritize their desire to help and put forward their skill set. Like, I know I can, I'm good at this and I can utilize it to make a positive difference and help someone. It's really amazing that there's people that like that who knowingly go into dangerous situations, knowing that there's a potential for them to get hurt or even worse. Like our first responders, police, firefighters, search and rescue team. our National Park Service, Rangers, EMTs. Like, there's so many people who do this. And these people are volunteering.

Right. Yeah, you just said they're all volunteer-based. And they know Mount Washington. They know that this is an avalanche zone. And they're going into a blizzard. And you said that they didn't even, they're like two missing hikers or climbers, no idea where they are.

Yeah. Like they're just like, we don't know. Good luck. Wow. Yeah. And the weather was so bad that they couldn't go out immediately because it was dark out. There was no visibility during the day. They couldn't go out at night.

So as soon as it got light out, there was a seven-member team that was assembled. And they went out there. Snow was still coming down. There were accumulations of snow that night of 19 inches or 48 centimeters. And it was negative 25 degrees or negative 31 degrees Celsius. and there was a horrible wind chill, so they're going out in like the worst of the worst weather. That day they trudged through the snow and they made it to Huntington Reveen. The team couldn't see past their own hands, but they stayed out there and they searched

and they searched for any sign of Hugh and Jeff. They spent the entire day out in these conditions and found no sign of them at all. When sunlight was starting to fade for their own safety, they had to get off the mountain and paused the search for the night. which left Jeff and Hugh out in these conditions for another night. The following day the team headed out, they spread out into separate search teams. So they separated into two people each and searched different areas of the gully around Huntington Ravine because they knew that they were somewhere or supposed to be somewhere in that area.

And it wasn't until close to the end of the day that Albert and his partner Michael found a trail of old footprints that they believed could be theirs. and they began to follow them. As the pair crossed over the ravine, the snow beneath them began to shift and then rumble. Static could then be heard on all the team members' radios who had been scattered in different areas at the ravine. Avalanche!

Avalanche! Michael's voice could be heard screaming over the radio. And in that instant, snow barreled down the mountain, engulfing both Michael and Albert and dragged them through a grove of trees burying them deep in the snow. The other team members watched in shock and horror as they felt the ground beneath them shake. As soon as the snow stopped moving, they all ran as quickly as they could to the area where Michael and Albert were carried off to. And the first thing that they saw was Michael's hand

sticking out from the snow. They gathered around and they carefully started digging and removing the snow around him, being careful to try and not collapse more of the snow on top of him. Well, as we learned in your Tahoe episode for, um, was that Patreon? Yeah, that was Patreon. Yeah, for the Lake Tahoe avalanche episode, you have to just be so careful when you're trying to recover or rescue people because that's a whole other situation that can unfold. Yeah, and we learned a lot about that with it too, because if the snow landed in a certain way where the person does have an air pocket, when you're digging, you could collapse that air pocket. So you have to dig around quickly and them out because if they're under there for a certain amount of time, they're going to suffocate.

Yeah. But they did. They got him out and he was still breathing and he was alive. Oh, thank God. Next, they moved to find Albert because there was no sign of him at all. They were looking around and there was absolutely nothing. None of his gear. His hand wasn't sticking out. There was no sign of him anywhere. So they grab out their avalanche probes, which we talked about in the avalanche episode as well. And avalanche probes are these long metal poles essentially that you can stick down into the ground to feel around for a person. And so they go to where they think that Albert may have landed based on where Michael was and where he had been standing in relation to Michael and start probing around. Very quickly, they find what they think is him and they start digging and they're digging as fast as they

can to find him and they get to him and they pull him out and very quickly it's apparent that he's no longer alive oh no what did he suffocate or when i read it said his neck was very clearly broken and his bones were broken from his collarbone to his shoulder on the other side oh so trauma what during the actual one report said that he died instantly because his neck was broken. And I didn't read too too much more into it, but I did read that one article did state that. Okay. But that's, that's so heartbreaking because he's out there like trying to rescue someone and then loses his life. Yeah. And this switched up what was going on too. You know, the whole team went out there to rescue these kids who were out there and now they

have an injured team member who just almost died in an avalanche and then their friend, co-worker team member just died. So now they have a whole other task. Like they need to get out of there. They need to get out of there safely. And they need to bring Albert and Michael out too. This left Jeff and Hugh up there for another night. The following day, Jeff and Hugh were taking shelter in their snow cave that they had built themselves. They were both high. hypothermic at this point and they were delirious. They had been hallucinating for days now. They had been hallucinating voices, sights. They didn't know how long they were out there. Were they out there for days, weeks, a few hours? They really had no idea. And they would hallucinate people's voices around them,

but there was never anyone there. And their limbs were now frozen, especially Hughes, who had been submerged in the water a few days before. Both of them were in extreme pain and it was unbearable at this point. They had stayed huddled close together to use their body heat to try and stay warm, but it wasn't enough. And at this point, the two of them had decided to give up. They were suffering, their limbs were freezing, they didn't have food, they were just in this immense pain and they decided that they no longer wanted to live and they decided not to sit together anymore. They didn't want to try and warm themselves up for body heat anymore. They wanted to try and die faster. God, what a predicament to find yourself in and to make that decision and to both be on the same

page of like, this is just too much. Like, it's over. They're kids too. You know, they're essentially their kids. Yeah. Suddenly, they heard the voice of a woman. At first, they chopped it up to being another one of their delusions and their hallucinations, but then it happened again, and the voice was closer. And then the next when they looked up, she was standing over them. It was Cam Bradshaw.

She was a woman who worked at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center and had decided to head up the mountain to go snowshoeing that day. While hiking, she noticed some old footprints that led off the trail, and she decided to decided to follow them. And that was when she found Hugh and Jeff. And she was concerned immediately about their condition. They were both on the brink of death and she called in Mountain Rescue immediately. Misha Kirk was the first one to arrive and right away she noticed the severity of their injuries. Jeff was badly frostbitten on his hands and one leg, but Hughes' legs were much, much worse. both of his legs were frozen solid from the middle of his calf down

and because of their condition and the condition of the terrain, the only way to be able to get them out was to call a helicopter. So they called in a helicopter from the National Guard to come in and rescue them. Which was also a really dangerous mission as well because to bring a helicopter to this altitude on Mount Washington where the wind speeds were so high, this could mean devastating effects to the helicopter and the pilot. if anything were to go wrong or if the weather switched up. Luckily though, the landing was successful

and they were able to lift the men into the helicopter and bring them to the closest hospital. Jeff's left hand was in bad shape at the hospital and was twice the size of what it should have been. His left leg was black and same with his toes on his right foot. Both of Hughes' legs were black from below the knee and gangrene had set in in both of his limbs. Doctors tried to save their limbs for a month before ultimately deciding they needed to amputate. Jeff lost his toes on his right foot, his entire lower left leg, and the fingers on his left hand. Hugh had both legs below the knee amputated and doctors told him that he was never going to climb again. Albert Dow was the first and only service rescue member to die during a rescue operation on Mount Washington.

He was extremely loved within his family and the community and at the time of his family, his death, he had a fiance who he had planned to marry only two weeks later on Valentine's Day. Oh my. That is so sad. Your whole life just flipped upside down for his family and his fiance. For his fiance, I mean, her future was just ripped away. You know, if you have plans with this person to have a family, you have a home, whatever it is, that just got ripped away. Wow. And the team members of the mountain rescue, really loved Albert and recognized what a wonderful and beautiful person he was and what a huge loss it was for his family. And they visit Hugh and Jeff in the hospital and they sat with both of them and told them what happened to Albert while they were trying to rescue them and told them all

about what a wonderful person he was. That's kind of like, I know there's probably really good intentions behind that and just trying to share, like you said, how much he meant to them. But like, on the receiving end of that, I mean, obviously, it's not like you did it on purpose, but to be on the receiving end of that of like, wow, like our decisions ultimately led to somebody's death that was trying to help us. That is very, I'm sure that was like a pivotal moment in their lives, for sure. And it was. Those talks from the team members really struck a huge chord with them because Jeff took this as him surviving and he took it as a will of God for the reason that he survived. And he ended up going on to work in the church and has ever since this happened. And Hugh, he, after these talks with the rescue team, he decided that it would be really disrespectful to Albert's memory to give up just because he had lost his lower limbs.

and he promised to dedicate his life to helping others live a better life. So he later went on to MIT and he studied biomedical devices and then furthered his education at Harvard University where he studied biophysics. And today, he was a professor at MIT Media Lab where he focuses on creating wearable robotic systems for prosthetics to change the lives of people with disabilities and to help them move around better. So he's created computer-controlled knees, which sense joint positions, and he has actually been named in the top 10 innovations for prosthetics. He's done a lot of work in the prosthetic world

for other people, but he's also been able to do a lot for himself as well. So he has actually created his own prosthetics. The doctor told him that he could never climb again, and he was kind of like, we'll see about that. And he created his own prosthetics. to climb again. And he actually catered them to make him better at climbing because he realized he didn't have to put regular feet on them. He could do whatever he wanted. And he formatted these feet essentially on the prosthetics to help him climb better. And he also realized he didn't have to be as tall as he actually was now that he had lost his lower limbs and he could change his height. He actually said in one interview that I watched, he said, you know, I was lucky enough to lose both of my

legs because now I can change a lot of things to help me be a better climber. Wow. So he just total like epitome of turning a shit situation into one that's working to your benefit and creating positive changes for other people too. I mean, that's just like incredible that he used something that a lot of people would take as like the end of your life, like or what you thought your life would be. Because at 17, you're already dedicated this amount of time to a skill, like climbing, and then you get this life-altering injury. And medical professionals are telling you, you know, you're never going to do this again. It's kind of like a death to what you thought your life would be. But he just seems to have, like, totally turned that around.

It's a comeback story, for sure. I really like this comeback story because he has taken this tragedy. He hasn't let it stop him at all. And I think that it's a really good viewpoint to be like, you know, you might be missing a limb or you might have something going on medically or physically or whatever it is. And that doesn't have to stop you from doing the things that you love. You just do it differently. You know, he said he's an even better climber than he used to be now. And he is missing the bottom half of both of his legs. Right. Having a disability doesn't mean that you can't do things better. I just love. what he did with his life because I think it's a really good highlight of all you can do. Right. Well put. And then there has been a memorial put into place for Albert Doe, the weather observatory dedicated an exhibit to Albert. The extreme weather exhibit inside the museum now has a plaque in remembrance of Albert and has been dedicated to him and all of the volunteer rescuers who help out on that mountain.

Albert's death also initiated some major changes in the U.S. Forest Service Management of the Mountain Rescue Team. And prior to his death, if any rescuer was injured or they died or anything like that, it was not covered by workman's comp. So now it is. So now these volunteers who are risking their safety in their lives, if they do get injured out there, they do get paid and they get their medical expenses covered, which I think is awesome. and they also made changes where they started getting better radio systems. They have trackers, beacons. They initiated flight search and rescue to help out with this, to make it safer and better for the mountain rescue teams that are out there. So with his death, there were a lot of innovations that happened to keep other people safe.

And there has not been a death of a mountain rescue service member while on a rescue mission on the mountain sense. Wow. So again, some positive changes after a tragedy. That's insane. I've never heard of this story. And, I mean, you said there was like 167 people who have died on Mount Washington. I couldn't tell you one story. Isn't that wild? You know, I, every single year, I feel like I do see in the news someone dying in an avalanche during the winter. because of backcountry skiing. I feel like I do see that, but in terms of like specific stories, I couldn't tell you that before I started doing research. That is quite the story. And it was a tragic one.

And there was a lot of sadness involved, especially around Albert. But one thing that I took away from that, one of the things is if you see something, you need to say something. And it reminded me it's like kind of like a common thread through different stories that we've done. And it reminded me both about, from, I forget his name, the guy that was working at the hut that initially called search and rescue because he noticed that they weren't back.

Him and Pam, who noticed the tracks leading off trail. Like if it wasn't for the two of them saying something or doing something when they did, who knows what could have happened to them. It might have been too late or they could have never been found, you know, for quite a long time until, you know, in those weather conditions, like you said, they were already close to death. But like, you also kind of mentioned something like that in your episode that we did for our live show in Joshua Tree about, you know, someone saying at the trailhead, they noticed that his car was still there. And he had only said he was going to go out on a day hike. This is just some random person that had a chance encounter with this guy.

And it's just like if you see something that just doesn't seem right, like that girl, Pam, she was just snowshoeing, like having her own day. Yeah, she was out. And, you know, I didn't. Like, maybe she had heard of it and then she saw the footprints. But it's such a good point. Like, it's better to say something. Just like, if you see, like, strange footprints or if you see a car that's that you've noticed there for days, there's no harm in calling it in and being like, hey, I saw this. and then the appropriate people can investigate it and see if they,

and maybe it's nothing, maybe it's fine. Maybe the person is totally fine, but if they're not, you could have just saved their life. Exactly. Yeah, that's like the one thing that really stuck out to me in this story just because you never know, like, if your chance observation could make a big difference for somebody. Yeah.

Yeah, that's such a good point. And I know I said that there's a lot of death and track. on Mount Washington, which is so true. But if you haven't been there, I don't want to deter you because it is beautiful. And there are a couple different ways that you can go to the top of Mount Washington. You can hike up it, which is a very challenging hike. So I definitely recommend looking into it in weather conditions no matter what time of year. But you can also drive up Mount Washington. It's a scary drive. It's a scary drive. And not in the winter. You can't do it in the winter. but it is kind of a scary drive.

It's really windy and it's really steep and you're looking over edges and there's like a cliff and when you go down the road there's signs everywhere that tell you to stop every few minutes so your tires don't catch on fire. Yeah, it's not the greatest, but you can get a little sticker that said this car,

what is it? This car climbed Mount Washington. Oh yeah, climbed, climbed, climbed. That's fine, Mount Washington. So you can do that. And then there's also, there's a cog railway on Mount Washington that you can take up, which is actually, fun fact, is the first cog railway in a mountain ever on the planet. What? Yeah, isn't that wild?

It's the first one that has ever existed. And it's also one of the steepest ones that exist to this day. And I have to do a little bit more research on it, but the way that it's made, like the railroad itself, there's no other. cog railway that's made the same way as them. So it's, there's a lot of history with the cog, but it's a really pretty way to go up, especially if you don't want to drive or if you don't want to hike. It's a cool way to go up. And I've done, I came down at one time, but it's beautiful. You have all the views. If you're going up, sit on the left. If you're going down, sit on the right. That's where all the pretty views are. Pro tip. I have never done the cog on Mount Washington.

I've just done it on the, on Pikes Peak in Colorado. Cool. It's just a fun way of seeing. It's just a different way of seeing things. And, you know, the person that was, what are they called? I want to say narrator. Conductor? No.

The person that, I don't know if it's like this on the one on Mount Washington, but they were kind of just like doing a talk about the history of Pikes Peak and the cog. There's like a little guide on there. Yeah, it's like a guy. There's a word for it, I know, but either way. It was fun because it's like you're getting information that maybe you wouldn't have if you were just driving up yourself. But yeah, I agree. It's a cool way to experience a mountain.

Also check the weather conditions if you want to do the cog because on Mount Washington, they do shut it down for weather. Even in the summertime, if the winds are too strong. I went down at one time and we get on. And the guy was like, it's like, oh, wind speeds are 72 miles per hour. we shut down the cog at 73 miles per hour and the whole thing's shaking and I'm just sitting on there and I'm like on a cliff and I'm like ah perfect. This is fine. Great. This is fine. What happens if you're mid cog? You just got to hope for the best. There's no turning around or anything. That's why I'm like, oh shit. Well, all right. Have there, okay, last question about the cog. Have there been any deaths like because of that? That would be your question. Well, you said, you know, like you're on a cliff and the wind speeds and all that. Obviously, they have

that regulation for a reason. I don't know if it's specifically because of wind, but there have been a couple of deaths on the Cog Railway. I'm not entirely shocked. I'm just intrigued. Yeah, so if you go to Mount Washington, go to the northern parts of New Hampshire, go to the White Mountains, do the Kangamangas Highway, there's the National Scenic Byway. go to North Conway. This is what they're going to do. All right, we're giving you an itinerary real quick. New Hampshire version.

This is what they're going to do. You're going to drive the Cancumangas Highway, do the scenic byway, make your way up to Mount Washington, hike up, take the cog down, and stay the night at the... What is it? Mount Washington Hotel? I almost said the Omni. Like, we're not in Boston. At the Mount Washington Hotel.

It looks just like the Stanley Hotel. It's on the National Historic Register. It's beautiful. It has tons of history. It's right in front of Mount Washington. You're going to have such a great time. There you go. That's what you're doing.

Yes. And then after you do all that fun stuff, go to North Conway. Go walk around, grab yourself a warm drink. There's the scenic railroad you can take too if you want to do a fun little dinner cruise. but go to Zeb's general store and thank me later. I don't know if I've ever been there. It doesn't bring a bill. There's no way you've never been to Zebs.

Zebs is like they have all that fudge and all the candy, and they have all these little goodies and trinkets, like especially if you're visiting, they have lots of different New Hampshire things like maple syrup and... Oh my God. It's a big yellow building. You just said maple syrup. I side note, I don't think I've been.

But when I was just hiking today, where I was, there was tons of snow, like feet of snow. But back here, where I live, there's like maybe a couple inches left. But I was thinking of like, I was like, damn, I should have bought or brought these big bowls so I could collect snow to bring it home so I could have sugar on snow. Not maple syrup on snow? Yeah, that's the same thing. It's called sugar on snow. That's what it's called? Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that. I've been doing that since I was a child. Yeah, it's like a total New England thing. And if people don't understand what that is, add it to your New Hampshire winter trip. Yeah, it's essentially when you boil maple syrup, the real. We're talking about real. Tapped from the trees, maple syrup, and you boil it to a certain temperature. There's a lot of things. It's like you have to learn from generations down. But essentially, you boil it in a special way and you pour it over snow that you collect from outside. And it like hardens into this like taffy like consistency. It's like hard candy, but not like too hard. Yeah. And it's so good. And then you just eat it off the snow. People are like, okay, that's disgusting. But yeah, we used to have sugar on snow parties every year. My family did. And, and,

I don't know if this is tradition or if we just made it up because it's so, so random. But we would have sugar on snow. And then as like sides, we'd have strips of pickles, like pickle spears, plain, plain donuts, not like frosted or like glazed, literally just plain donuts, boiled eggs and ham. Ew, that's disgusting. That is not a tradition. Okay, I will say Not a ham person

We had donuts, ham and pickles And maple syrup It's like, yeah, it sounds absolutely appalling Like saying it out loud It was just a thing Like I don't know what we did but Well, now that you all have our history of New Hampshire and the pickle tradition

Pipple maple syrup tradition We have shared a little bit of our home with you guys in a story here. That's close to our hearts just because it took place in New Hampshire and affected people in New Hampshire. When looking into this, Albert Dow's family did ask for something from people to pay tribute to Albert, and that was if you are going to Mount Washington, whether you're hiking or driving, whatever you're climbing, whatever you're doing, to just be respectful and to think of Albert

in what you're doing. Come prepared. Be respectful to the mountain. Be respectful to the mountain rescuers that are going to come out there if you don't go prepared. And that was just something that they asked for us all to do, which I think is very, very possible. So if you do go to Mount Washington, have a great time and be safe. Be careful.

Very reasonable ask. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in. We're happy to bring you to our home state. We'll see you guys next Monday, but in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye. Bye. Everyone's going to hate me now because of that tradition.

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