Presidential Traverse, February 1st-3rd, 2007

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.