On Saturday however Greg and I set out to bag another of the 4000 footers left on his list. We were considering a few different mountains but since the weather forecast was so good we decided to give one of the bigger ones a go. Mount Monroe is the 4th highest peak in New Hampshire and is the first one south of Washington in the Presidential Range. We thought we had all the gear we would need so off we went early Saturday morning. I have all the winter climbing stuff you could ever need for myself and he borrowed some of my instep crampons and also had mountaineering snowshoes he got from his work. With all that we set out for what was to be a nice quick day hike in the white mountains so we could get back in time for Uncle Jeff's 50th birthday party. It ended up being like the nice three hour tour they were taking on Gilligan's Island.
When the trail got steep and slippery he tried out the snowshoes but they weren't digging in very well so he bare booted it to the Lake Of the Clouds hut. Then he put on some 4 point instep crampons for the summit push but they turned out to be inadequate and once we got up he couldn't safely get back down the same way. Since he'd already slipped and slid about 100 feet earlier (see video below) we took a detour down the other way and tried to follow another trail back which turned out to not be any safer. We looped back to the other side and picked our way down a rock strewn snowfield and finally back to the hut along the western side of the mountain. It was a lesson learned I guess, don't go up certain trails unless you're sure you have everyhting you might possibly need. I was all set but he'll be getting a few more pieces of winter gear I'm guessing (crampons and an ice axe Anne if you're reading this). Some teamwork got us down safely which was good because the emergency exit route would have left us 6 miles from the car. Fortunately we didn't have to use that trail.
Once we were back on the trail we headed down a few hundred feet and ran into a father and his kid who had just broken or severely sprained his ankle. They had already splinted it so after they got some climbing rope from another group of passing hikers and called 911 for help we slowly lowered him down the steep icy parts and then near the bottom had to pull him like a sled dogs to the bottom where the search and rescue team met us a few hundred feet from the car, three hours after they had called 911. They put him on the sled for the last few feet and took him down to the parking area where the EMT's could check him out. It turned out to be quite a day.
There's also a short blurb here about the rescue from Boston.com and here from the Union Leader if that doesn't work. I thought it was kind of neat to know the "other hikers" were Greg and I.
Anyhow, if you want to see pictures from the otherwise perfect day for hiking there's a lot of pictures here. There's none of the rescue (I didn't think they'd like that very much).
Enjoy!
Looking up at and standing on the summit of Mt. Monroe
This is where the kid fell and the route we had to take him down.
The video of Greg's slide. I'd bet he doesn't try this again without crampons and an ice axe. If it doesn't work or you'd like to see a slightly larger version it's on youtube here also.
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