The 2006-2007 ECP Mountaineering graduation trip was the Presidential traverse. A committing 18 mile traverse of the range, facing the arctic conditions often found in the White Mountains, commonly claimed to have the worst weather in the world. Most of the groups opted to carry tents while we decided to make do with Bivy sacks, allowing us more options for a bivouac site.

We drove to north Conway to meet up with those who flew in from Pittsburgh. Once at the trailhead, we made last minute adjustments to gear, most of us decided to leave their snowshoes in the car, and we began the traverse at 8 am. Brian W. accompanied us for most of the climb to Madison but would not be continuing on the whole traverse. The climb to Madison was tough, over 3500 feet of elevation gain in almost four miles but the weather was nice and the trail had light snow covering it. Upon entering the alpine zone, we could hear the high winds above tree line and looking towards the ravine showed high winds blowing clouds through. We passed our 1st option for a bivy site at the valley way tentsites, 3 miles in and climbed above tree line to the Madison hut, reaching it at noon. The wind picked up significantly and the temperature dropped with the wind chill once out of the trees. The view was beautiful and more than made up for the slog up through the trees. It felt desolate out of the trees, the stillness of tree line was gone, the wind was constantly pushing against us. We had planned on trying to push to the Israel ridge trails and bivy below tree line off the trail but Steve, one the climbers, developed severe abdominal pain at the hut, this was serious and we were extremely worried about his condition and evacuation was debated. Luckily we had a doctor with us and James was able to determine that it was a muscle spasm or cramp rather than appendicitis or another serious illness. While James diagnosed Steve, the decision was reached to set up camp around the hut and resume in the morning. My group decided to drop packs and bag the Madison summit 550 feet higher. Taking only goggles and glacier axes, we pushed up the south west side of Madison through the verglas and rime crusted boulders dusted with snow. The wind was blowing at 40 mph gusts and the temp noticeably dropped as we climbed. We didn’t follow the path on the ascent and upon reaching the summit area, we found we were beaten by a day hiker and his large dog. We descended by the regular trail and passed a pair of our other teams headed up the trail to the summit. Back at the hut, we set up our bivy’s in a sheltered spot on the east side of the building. Shane and I dug out a large drift and formed a tight sleeping area protected by a snow wall while Tom and Jen dug into snow covered hill somewhat. Very suddenly while we were setting up camp Jen began to shiver and began going hypothermic. While Shane and I continued to set up the stoves and get the brew on, Tom took care of Jen and got her into her bivy, we gave her a hot water bottle as soon as we had the water boiling. After some food, water, heat packs and hot water bottles Jen appeared to be in much better shape and we went to bed soon after sunset at 5:30 pm. The temperature stayed warm through the night at 8 degrees and wind stayed relatively low at 25 MPH. My sleep system worked very well and I slept in my base layer and vented my bag partially. I woke up at sunrise at 7am and we packed up and had a quick breakfast of water and cliff bars. While we ate, David and Jason began up the trail to the south of Adams rather than our intended route of the Gulfside Trail. Our group was joined by Sid and Ron’s group while the last group remained at camp, still cooking a hot breakfast with tents still up when we started on the trail. We climbed up past Quincy Adams and through the col between Mt. Adams and Mt Sam Adams. The trail was relatively good, shallow snow and rime ice with short sections of knee deep snow between Adams 5 and Edmonds col. At thunderstorm junction, we marked our time and checked in on the radio. We estimated the last group was an hour behind us and that David and Jason, who thought they were in the lead, found themselves near the back of the group and were increasing pace to catch up after breaking in an alternate, harder trail through deep snow on Mt. Adams. From Edmonds col, we began the steep climb up Mt. Jefferson. The trail was steep, with up to knee-deep snow. We made a good pace up it, with Tom breaking trail and kicking in steps. After Jefferson, the trail descended into sphinx col, where David and Jason caught up with us, and climbed the minor summit of Mt. Clay. As we continued on the easier part of the trail, we saw tons of weather systems on the nearby summits. Clouds, precipitation and wind were there but the area on the ridge remained sunny and clear.

As we neared the cog rail, Sid and Ron’s group decided to attempt to summit Mt. Washington. Our group decided that it would cut the time to close and use too much energy. We split off and continued around the summit cone to Crawford path. We descended to the lake of the clouds hut and spent close to an hour resting in the dungeon. After 45 minutes, Sid and Ron’s group showed up, they had turned back from the summit after making poor time up the face. Soon after they arrived, our group began the climb up Mt. Monroe, followed by the others 10 minutes later. After climbing about 100 feet from the base, the weather we had spotted earlier began to roll in. It became difficult to see the group following us. Several minutes later Tom asked me to get on the radio and let the other teams know the conditions on Monroe and to try to get all the groups together. Within five or ten minutes, the group trailing us had caught up and we continued on the trail towards the summit of Monroe. Up to this point, we had been relying mostly on cairns, checking our topos infrequently to find our rough position. Near the summit however, due to the visibility we lost the cairns. We began searching for cairns in the whiteout, staying within view of the massive boulders on the summit proper. During these searches, our teammate Shane began shooting an azimuth to determine our heading in case we were unable to find a cairn. After 20 minutes of searching, Ron found a cairn but due to the subtle S shaped curve of the trail near the summit and the poor visibility, many of us believed we had traveled in a circle and that the cairn Ron had found was leading in the wrong direction, however the compass indicated otherwise and against our instincts we followed the trail. During the descent from Monroe, the wind began to pick up and soon we were facing 40 to 60 mph gusts. Rime ice began to form on our clothing, equipment and faces.

My goggles became severely iced over and I was forced to go without them. We began climbing the slight slope to the summit of Mt. Franklin. Nearing the summit, we discovered that the third group had nearly caught us due to our navigation issues. As they followed, sometimes less than 15 minutes behind, our trail was already disappearing from the wind. We ran into problems due to the lack of visibility and ended up descending off the ridge near the summit, searching for the trail. As we descended some 20 feet, the third group passed us, still on the ridge, completely invisible and inaudible.

Some of the members in our group and the third group were using rino GPS radios, and were able to “see” one another as they passed. Rather than stop and wait for us to re-ascend the ridge and regroup, they began to wand the route behind them while we followed and collected the wands.

We soon caught up with them on the descent from Franklin. At this point, we were a half a mile from the nearest bail point and a half an hour from dark. We moved along the ridge line between Franklin and Eisenhower, close to our bail point, we donned head lamps and formed a tight line. At the bail point, we found no ideal place to bivy, and rather than descend the bail route to the tree line for the night, we decided to press on through the darkness and whiteout conditions to the opposite side of Mt. Eisenhower. In the dark, in a whiteout, your world shrinks, your field of view narrowed to a tiny slit due to blinding wind and snow. Your whole world becomes putting one foot in front of the other, following the person in front of you, only able to make out dim shadows just a few feet away. Our water began running out or freezing in the wind-chill, we had been hiking for over 12 hours. We trudged through the darkness, ascending and summiting Mt. Eisenhower and descending the southern slope. Soon the windswept snow and verglas covered rocks gave way to tiny conifers coated in rime ice. Soon the trees were 8 feet tall and the wind became a whisper over the tops of them. We found a perfect bivy site right on the trail. Those with tents forced to encamp in the small clearings on the trail, while those of us in bivy sacks, were able to stay directly on the trail, surrounded by “trees”.

We set up our bivy’s and began melting snow, attempting and failing to keep the omnipresent pine needles out of our dinner. Mountain house never tasted so good. I made hot cider and drank it while it was still near boiling. I decided to only melt a quarter liter for the morning and a liter of water for the almost 4 mile hike out in the morning. I slept like the dead despite spindrift blowing onto my face all night. Saturday dawned bright and clear with 6 to 8 inches of fresh snow, my bivy sack was completely covered. We packed up quickly and ate breakfast. We took pictures of the amazing view and tried to keep moving while we waited for Sid and Ron’s group to pack up and hike out with us. From our research, we knew that the last part of ridgeline between Mt. Eisenhower and Mt. Pierce would have the deepest snow drifts and only one member of the group had elected to bring snowshoes, the rest of us had left ours in the cars, deciding the extra weight wasn’t worth it for a quarter mile of post-holing. Within a few hundred yards of our campsite, the wind picked up and the snow deepened to mid thigh. We put our lucky snow-shoer in lead to break in the drifts as much as possible. We ascended Mt. Pierce up through the deep drifts in the trees and over the verglas and snow covered rocks in the clearings. Despite the shoes, the going was hard and soon Matt needed to take a break, Shane stepped into the lead and plowed through drifts up to chest deep. This was extremely difficult and slow, Shane had to kick in steps repeatedly in the soft snow before it would hold enough weight to step up on. Shane soon needed a break, the drifts unrelenting, I took the lead and after post holing thigh deep through a drift, the trail cleared to ankle deep snow and we began the descent off of Mt. Pierce.

We descended through the last of the alpine zone and into tree line, little more than 3 miles from the Crawford trailhead. The trail was beautiful, fresh unmarked snow through still trees covered in snow. This was completely surreal scenery to me after a day on an exposed ridge and being constantly blasted by the wind and snow. After about a mile of descent, we ran into a snowshoer, climbing the trail on a day hike. After a quick pleasantry or two I began to descend again. Soon, more snow shoers appeared, after learning we just finished the presidential traverse, most were somewhat shocked and congratulatory. It became apparent though that the question of the morning was “How’s the weather up there?” by the time we reached the parking lot, we had passed some 35 hikers, including a massive AMC guided group. Shane had called Brian W. while we were still descending and within 20 minutes of reaching the parking lot, we were greeted by Brian, with a pint of whiskey and a tray of coffee in tow. We talked shit, drank whiskey and dug a massive snow cave in the parking lot while we waited for the last teams to arrive and for the car shuttle to arrive. We played in the parking lot’s sun baked warmth of the below-tree-line comfort, tired and elated with our success.