Feb. 17th-Mt. Pemigawasset to avoid a VFTT lambasting

[Toe Cozy]

Saturday evening we checked the summit weather forecasts for Sunday. They included high winds and associated wind chills increasing steadily throughout the day into the afternoon. Sunday morning rolled around and the sky was blue, the air temperature comfortable and we couldn't believe we had bailed on our idea of heading up Haystack and Lincoln. We headed for Indian Head instead.

I don't know what the weather really was like up there on the ridge on Sunday afternoon. Honestly it didn't "look" too bad from where we were. Maybe we could have done Lincoln, maybe we were overly cautious. You know what? The mountains will be there next time. We were perfectly happy and safe with our little nature hike up a non 4k peak.

After the recent string of lost, rescued or deceased hikers in the Whites, and Franconia Ridge in particular, Nancy and I didn't want to end up as the subjects of another lambasting thread on VFTT!

 

[gram]

Good choice!

On Sunday we headed up the Old Bridal Path, our goal being the ledges on Walker Ravine.

Bluebird day at the parking lot at 10:45, blue sky, full sun, no wind. 10 minutes into the hike and the clouds rolled in. When we hit the ledges, the temp had dropped 15 degrees and the wind was whipping.

The hikers we talked to who were on their way down all commented on how ferocious the wind was! Some had turned back.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

...After the recent string of lost, rescued or deceased hikers in the Whites, and Franconia Ridge in particular, Nancy and I didn't want to end up as the subjects of another lambasting thread on VFTT!

I never let the tone of threads, as Chip noted elsewhere "brutish" threads influence what, where and when I hike. Not that I dismiss them entirely, but the older I get the more comfortable I become trusting my own instincts.

Most of the lambasting is the result of redirected fear. I'm not a psychologist, but my instincts (and own experience) says that we when we act macho and tough it's out of hope the bogeyman won't get us. A corollary to this is 'if we can TALK superior long enough then maybe we'll actually BE superior'. It gets tedious after awhile, because as everyone knows, the only way to gain that knowledge is to stay at a Holiday Inn Express ...

 

[king tut]

After the tragic Meredith case in Georgia, a lot of people said they were not going to go back out on the trails without a shotgun, a pit bull, and karate lessons. Now that the weather is the issue, people are frightened of that. It all comes down to the fact that the most prepared, the most informed, and the most talented people survive bad conditions while the uninformed newbies may have a survival rate of say 97% or so. It's all odds, most of the time if you are prepared, you will be fine. If you make too many bad decisions in a row, then maybe something will eventually happen to you. Conversely, one person could make one wrong decision and slip off a cliff when they did everything right while the guy wearing tennis sneakers instead of snowshoes comes through a similar ordeal fine. It's all risk and odds. I am a bit of a wuss, so I just generally go skiing. Occasionally I will go out and hike a 4,000 footer in winter on my own, but I have never pushed beyond what I was comfortable with and I have never gone out in iffy weather. I want to survive just a little longer, so I see no need to take any risks. I would rather take a 90% chance of a beer and hot tub after skiing than a 2 % chance of spending my night hunkered down in an ice cave out of the weather on some trail.

 

[Mad Townie]

a lot of people said they were not going to go back out on the trails without a shotgun, a pit bull, and karate lessons.

Why not just take Skimom along on all their hikes?