Peak Experiences: Danger, Death, and Daring in the Mountains of the Northeast

A Bridge to Safety?

Leonard H. Grubbs A Bridge to Safety? After a full week of mild weather and rain in February, our long-scheduled hike involved crossing a significant river. Ordinarily, midwinter is the best time to schedule this hike, because the river is frozen enough to find good crossings. Today, though, we decided to attempt the crossing a mile upstream, where the river was narrower, and we found an ice bridge that held. The hike involved an extensive bushwhack on the other side, but we reached the summit at a relatively early hour with several strong trailbreakers , so we decided that we would bushwhack to a second nearby peak. It was a great decision, taking only one hour. We could now retrace, climbing some 400 feet back up the first peak, then down the other side on our broken trail to the safe crossing; or we could descend from the second peak, proceeding more directly down while also avoiding the re-climb. We opted for the latter, hoping that another safe crossing would be found a mile downstream, even though we had been pessimistic about it originally. We set our compasses and, after some time, realized with chagrin that we were descending into the wrong valley, a route that would push our crossing even farther downstream. Again, hope triumphed over reason and we elected not to retrace our steps, thereby avoiding another ascent and additional miles. We reached the river at five o’clock; all we saw was open water. It was zero degrees and night was imminent. A scouting party finally found a small ice crossing and the hike leader carefully walked out about 10 feet. With a loud crack, the ice suddenly broke and he fell in up to his chest, with his snowshoes and ice ax. He somehow managed to find strong enough ice, rolled onto it, and got back to shore, but now hypothermia and frostbite were rearing their ugly heads. He quickly stripped off all his clothes in the frigid air and changed into dry ones, while another brave person tested some ice nearby, locating a safe crossing just as dark was becoming complete. The first part of our substantial bushwhack back to civilization required us to hike a mile back up the river. We stopped periodically to put the leader ’s cold feet onto bare bodies, warming them up enough to evade frostbite. 169 d a n g e r s o f w a t e r i n t h e m o u n t a i n s It was difficult for everyone to tarry in the subzero temperatures, where not moving meant quick loss of body heat and painfully cold extremities. The bushwhack away from the river in the pitch-dark was onerous, involving route-finding and slow going over much snow-covered blowdown and thick forest. On the river bottom rests a good ice ax, and in the minds of several hikers is lodged a lesson about winter thaws. ...