2.22.08 Why The Whites Kill Although their highest peak stands just 6,288 feet, the White
Mountains are among the continent's most dangerous peaks. Here's why.
A series of deadly
accidents are reminding New Englanders once again how dangerous the
White Mountains can be.
Earlier this month,
one man died after he and his hiking partner were stranded on 4,800-foot
Little Haystack overnight. According to a story in the
Union Leader, the two men set out in good conditions the morning
of Sunday, February 10, planning to hike to the summit of Mount
Lafayette, a nine-mile loop up the Falling Waters Trail and down the
Bridal Path. New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game officials said
the two had good gear and had winter hiking experience, but were not
equipped for extreme conditions. And that's exactly what followed.
Despite the good weather at the beginning of the trip, howling winds of
up to 60 miles-per-hour and subzero temperatures set in. After the two
failed to report to work the next day, search teams found them above the
treeline Monday night, one dead and the other in critical condition.
The video shot during the first week of
February shows how drastically Mount Washington's weather can change.
The first three minutes are rather calm, but soon winds of 112
miles-per-hour whip up and temps drop to subzero.
Just days earlier,
two hikers who lost their trail during a whiteout survived a freezing
night on 6,288-foot Mount Washington. The two hikers got caught in the
whiteout when they were above the treeline. After losing the trail, they
dug a deep hole in the snow and used extra gear and broken branches to
keep from freezing while temperatures dropped to near zero and winds
whipped at 70 miles-per-hour.
And in mid-January,
an experienced climber died in an avalanche on Mount Washington. The
climber was hiking in the area of Huntington Ravine. The U.S. Forest
Service had rated the likelihood of an avalanche in the area as "high,"
and it is believed a snow slope fractured during the man's climb. His
body was found 400 feet below O'Dell's Gully.
Even though they have
a modest elevation when compared with much bigger mountains in other
parts of the country, the White Mountains are among the continent's most
dangerous peaks. According to Peter Crane, Director of Programs at the
Mount Washington
Observatory, the reason for that is a mix of geography, Mother
Nature and human nature.
Crane says New
England in general is exposed to some rugged weather. Due to its
location, the region is exposed to three major winter storm tracks: one
coming up the Atlantic coast spawning nor'easters, one bringing moisture
from the Gulf of Mexico up the Appalachian Mountains to New England, and
another bringing cold air from Canada and across the Great Lakes.
Additionally, he
says, the White Mountains have what is known as "mountain weather,"
where the topography of the peaks enhance bad weather. These are those
times when the general forecast might sound okay, but things are
entirely different once you get into the mountains.
With a trend roughly
north to south, and with prevailing westerly winds, moving air masses
are forced up the mountain slope. As they ascend, they expand in the
lower pressure higher above the earth's surface, and as they expand they
cool. In cooling, those air masses may reach their dew point
temperature, resulting in clouds and perhaps in precipitation. And as
the winds are forced between the mountain slopes and more stable air
aloft, they accelerate, creating those gusty blows the Whites are
well-known for.
As a case in point,
during the same time as the deadly accident on Little Haystack, the
temperature at the summit of Mount Washington dipped to -22 degrees
Fahrenheit, and winds gusted to 96 miles per hour. Some of that time
windblown snow and fog yielded very poor visibility. On that Monday, the
winds average 73 miles per hour for the day with a high temperature of
-7 degrees Fahrenheit. (See
just how dramatically the temperature and wind speed changed.)
A third factor, says
Chase, is how accessible the White Mountains are to so many people in
New England. He says while there are other places that have extreme
weather more regularly, such as areas in Antarctica, the high peaks of
Alaska or the Himalayas, such places are generally hard for people to
reach. Meanwhile, an estimated 70 million people live within a day's
drive of Mount Washington.
"You have a lot of
potential for extreme weather and people to meet, sometimes tragically,"
says Chase. "It does get colder in Alaska, Siberia and Antarctica, and
it snows more in the Cascades, but our combination of cold, wind, icing,
fog and snow can be remarkable, and readily visited."
