Stability

Commute to Work

Wicked but my watch died

First day on a lift!

Check out the previous days activity for more context. Realistically like 11 miles

The cold morning air kept all 4 of us in bed longer than we hoped. Spencer and I didn’t leave till 10am or so. (Mistake 1) Given the slow pace the day previous, we adjusted our plan and decided that rather than skiing several runs on Oaks Gulf and then skiing out the same way we came in,
we should cross over Boott Spur to Tuckermans Ravine and ski Left Gully down to Pinkham Notch and get picked up there by Dillon in my car. We made this call despite the late start, knowing it was 3+ miles to the ridge with considerable vert, and knowing that there were 100mph gusts and and sustained winds over 70mph predicted for the high country. (Mistake 2)

We headed off and immediately went back to the same slow pace as Saturday. There was more snow up high so it was slightly better but the steeper terrain slowed us down too.

Nick and Dillon had gone ahead, planning to summit Monroe and then walk the Crawford path (ridgeline) back to Nicks car, pick up my car and then meet Spencer and me at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center. Ultimately after post holing in the powder up to his chest and hearing strong gusts from high above, Nick and Dillon turned around. 2 hours into our hike, Spencer and I passed Nick and Dillon on their descent and they tried to persuade us to turn around too.

I take full responsibility for the next few mistakes.

I was convinced that climbing a gully up Oaks Gulf would deposit Spencer and I very near Tuckermans and that the exposed ridge line would be short and manageable. Thus we didn’t turn around. (Mistake 3)

Spencer was uncomfortable with this but I kept trying to debate him because in my mind it was not feasable to exit as we had entered. Roughly 7 miles had taken us 10 hours on Saturday and I figured it would likely be the same or slower pace. So we continued hiking until we reached a small clearing where the plan was to leave the trail and bushwhack to the gully headwall. Spencer was particularly concerned about avalanche risk as we wouldn’t really be able to bail after reaching the gully and we couldn’t assess the snow pack until we got there.

I felt very uneasy with the plan and so did Spencer. I reminded him that we were a team and he could veto the plan. He did.

The plan then became to skin back to the shelter ~2 miles. And assess our pace from there. At this point it was 1pm and had begun raining. We were 9 miles from the road. I fully expected us not to make it out.

We then started to skin down only to realize that was even slower than skinning up. We then tried switching to hiking boots but with so much weight on our backs and the added height of the skis this was not possible. It was at this point that I realized we very well could become stuck.

Spencer and I had 2 dry base layers left, plenty of food, dry camping equipment but no means to start a fire. I knew we could feasibly spend another night out but this was far from ideal.

No one knew this new plan, we had no cell service to inform anyone that we would very likely miss our projected finish time by a lot.

For a brief moment Spencer and I were silently panicking together over the situation when I realized something. I looked at Spencer and said ‘Dude we’re forgetting something, we’re superheros and our power is skiing, let’s use it.’

We switched from boots back to skis and got the downhill setup locked. We then started skiing down which turned out to be extremely efficient in the high terrain with all the snow and we made it back to the shelter in 45 min. This had taken 3 hours going up.

At the shelter I changed into my last dry base layer, ate a lot of food, drank and refilled water, and made a plan to exit no matter what. At this point, due to the multiple changeovers, it was now 3:15. 1 hour to sunset.

Spencer made the hard choice of leaving one of his bags with mostly ski gear which made him significantly faster. The gear is wrapped in a tarp at the Dry River Shelter #3 if anyone would like to retrieve it lol.

We continued at a decent pace for a couple miles but as we dropped elevation and the rain worsened the snow got thinner and thinner. We were essentially skiing on 3 inches of corn on top of rocks. I havnt had the heart to look at my skis.

As the terrain progressively worsened and we progressively tired and I lost control of my mind. I became very negative and started to drag my feet.

As the sun set we had 3.5 more miles and I knew it would only get worse. I went to pull out my headlamp and it wasn’t where I had left it. It was at this moment that I really started to doubt we would escape the woods that evening. This sent me into a frantic spiral where I ripped apart my whole bag for 15 min unable to find the light. I knew I couldn’t continue safely without it. I had all but given up when I checked a pocket for the 4th time and boom there it was. This gave me a short lived rush that faded faster than I hoped.

Skiing down was ok at first even with the rocks but we had very few areas where we could hold any speed due to how tight the trail was and how many rocks there were. Additionally there were countless brief but steep climbs that required we take our skis off and hike. Hiking killed me and really slowed us down.

Because of this, I kept trying to keep my skis on as much as possible. On two different short descents I lost my balance and tumbled backwards down some small rocky cliffs. Luckily avoiding any injury. It goes without saying that a concussion or knee injury would have been catastrophic at this point.

Eventually the rain and higher temps had melted away most of the snow and we were skiing through mud.

By far the most terrifying thing happened with about 2.5 miles to go. Spencer and I were walking in the pitch black along the rivers edge when we heard a tremendous noise that first sounded like thunder but then like 1000 shotguns. It took us a moment to realize that the rain had weakened the river bank and the side opposing us had just collapsed 40 feet into the freezing water below.

Having hiked in yesterday in the daylight we knew that many sections of the trail crossed dangerously close to the cliff and were likely undermined as well. We then planned to watch for these sections and maintain a distance between us and traverse them as quickly as possible without stopping.

Honestly if one of us fell in like this we would have surly died. This was truly terrifying to think of.

At this point I was so exhausted I had slowed to a near crawl and was practically begging Spencer to stop at every opportunity. Somehow he remained resolute in his determination and his will was strong enough for both of us.

After 6 hours of trudging through this hellhole of a valley we made it back to the road. We went into an outhouse to escape the pouring rain and I changed out of my soaked base layer and into a dry mid layer. Spencer changed layers as well. We then ate some food, warmed up and got ready to try to flag someone down off the road.

At this point it was 10pm, 30F, pitch black, and pouring rain. We were completely exhausted, soaking wet and rapidly succumbing to hypothermia.

No less than 10 cars passed us as we flashed our lights and waved them down. I understand that picking up hitchhikers is extremely dangerous but I was shocked no one even slowed to to see if we were ok. We had no service and no way of contacting Dillon or Nick who had arrived at Pinkham notch hours earlier expecting to find us there.

We left our bags at the side of the road and walked a half mile to a parking lot where I remembered having enough service to send a text over the summer. There was no service.

It was at this point Spencer and I bit the bullet and used the Emergency SOS on his phone to call 911 to pick us up. Immediately after we hung up with 911 a DOT truck pulled up and offered us a ride to Bartlet where we would have service and a warm dry place to wait. We called Dillon and he came and got us.

Once I was warm and a little dryer I started to notice how cut up my hands were and how blistered my feet were. I also realized I was hallucinating slightly and slurring my words significantly. Spencer says I was making no sense most of the time while hiking. I’m pretty sure I had the beginnings of frostbite on my hands and I was almost certainly hypothermic for several hours. Interesting I never felt very cold tho I believe that’s part of the process.

As you might expect Dillon had alerted the Forest Service and we had received text messages asking if we were out. I assume we will have to debrief them tomorrow. I’m very glad a search party wasn’t sent out. that would have put others at risk due to my dumb decision making.

From the moment Spencer vetoed the plan I knew we would be scaring a lot of people. This was profoundly upsetting to me because I knew I had really let everyone down. This hike was my idea, I claimed to be knowledgeable on the area and I falsely claimed all the problems were not serious concerns. As I said before, this was a major failure on my part.

Reading the texts once I got back to service broke my heart because I saw the fear in the progression of texts from my girlfriend as the day got later and later and I hadn’t responded.

I was so scared through this entire hike today and never want to put myself in a similar situation. This was brutal physically emotionally and mentally. I couldn’t have done it without Spencer and I’m forever grateful for how he kept his cool and pushed me on, Spencer you saved my life.

Needless to say I’m not going winter hiking again for a while, definitely not on this kinda crappy trail. And I’m certainly not bringing skis up a hiking trail ever again. For anyone who made it to the end here I hope you learned something from my mistakes, I was really lucky here in more ways than I probably deserved. This wasn’t like some of my other ‘near death’ encounters, it was very clear from noon on that this was an emergency.

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Gus Shuster

We Nearly Died.

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Commute to Work

Wicked but my watch died

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First day on a lift!

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