Laurence Gonzales - Chemistry of Fire

WHEN MONROE COUPER and Erik Lattey left Harvard Cabin in Huntington Ravine, the weather was not bad, considering that they were on Mount Washington. The temperature was in the teens, and the wind gusts ranged from forty to sixty miles an hour on the summit. The weather was forecast to hold, and since they didnt plan to go to the summit, they werent worried. They were going to climb a frozen waterfall known as Pinnacle Gully and be back at the cabin before dark. They decided to travel light and leave their larger overnight packs at the cabin.

Climbing magazine had recently published an article about an ascent of Pinnacle Gully, an exciting story of triumph over adversity, which had attracted a lot of climbers to that route. No one knows if Couper and Lattey had read it, but they were enthusiastic novice ice climbers and well may have. The story worried Mountain Rescue Service volunteers who felt that it might encourage people to push on beyond their abilities. Couper and Lattey thought of Pinnacle as an easy climb, a natural next step after the guided trips and climbs the two had completed during previous seasons. They were wrong.

While the two men were hiking up the broad and rugged trail toward Pinnacle, Alain Comeau, a leader with Mountain Rescue Service and a local guide, was taking a group up another trail. He saw fast-moving clouds on the horizon. As he said later, Ive been in the worst weather on Mount Washington. He knew how bad it could be. He started his group back down to seek shelter. Bill Aughton, director of search and rescue at the Appalachian Mountain Club, was also guiding that day. He was so impressed that he photographed the weather before turning his group around.

Comeau had guided Monroe Couper and had taught him ice climbing. Hed had a bit of experience before that, Comeau told me. He wanted tolearn to lead. He wanted to move off on his own. But the Pinnacle was not the right next step. Its a serious climb in a serious environment. A lot of people aspire to a climb like that. Technically he could have done it, maybe, on a good day in perfect conditions. But Pinnacle is a vertical ice climb and very technical. On a scale of one to five, this is a three plus. They had all brand-new gear, too, which tells you something.

As Couper and Lattey reached the base of the gully, they realized that in their rush to get started, they had forgotten their climbing rope. It was noon by the time theyd returned to Harvard Cabin, retrieved the rope, and left again to make the strenuous hike for the third time. After that, they would have been tired and therefore much more vulnerable to hypothermia. They definitely would have been sweaty when they started, Comeau said. And in this environment, its essential to stay dry.

They could have easily calculated that they no longer had the time to make the climb and descend before dark. They could have seen the weather moving in, as Comeau had. They could have recognized that leaving your rope behind is a sign of mental impairment. And even if all that evidence didnt deter them, they could have read the big yellow signs posted at the trailheads. They say, Stop. Then in smaller letters, The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Not some of the worst, but the worst. General Electric tested early turbojet engines on top of Mount Washington because of that. The notice continues unequivocally: Many have died there from exposure, even in the summer. Turn back now if the weather is bad.

Even without the posted warning signs, they could have looked up to see what Comeau and Aughton saw.

Couper and Lattey pressed on.

The mythology is that anyone can get up Mount Washington, if not to ski, then at least to stand on top and look around. Every year, many people do. But a beautiful day on Mount Washington can turn bitter so fast that most people cant imagine it. Theyve never seen or felt anything like it, so they dont have that true belief we get from direct experience. Like falling into icy water, it shocks and numbs and defeats people before they have a chance to think clearly. The first person to climb Mount Washington in winter conditions was also the first person to die there. In October 1849, Frederick Strickland, an English gentleman bent on experiencing the outdoors, began his climb.Ill-informed and ill-prepared, he succumbed to hypothermia, ripped off his clothes, and died short of the summit. Scores of people have died there. But death is only one measure of the hazards. For every body that comes back, dozens more have been injured or have suffered needlessly and have had to be rescued. As on Everest, some dead climbers have never been brought back.

Recently, I hiked up Tuckerman Ravine Trail on the first beautiful warm day of spring to see some of the half-million people who visit there each year. As I slogged up the steep, slippery slush in a dense forest of birch and pine richly floored with blowdown and the damage from ice storms, I was never out of sight of at least a dozen people on the switchbacks. The sun was warm, casting a cathedral light through the trees. I saw octogenarians in long johns and six-year-olds in high-tech, expedition-weight summit gear. There were snowshoes and no shoes and serious-looking people with ice-climbing gear. Everyone was grinning, joking, saying hi to strangers. It seemed utterly unreal that a day like this could turn nightmarish in a whiteout blizzard within a matter of minutes.