Treeline Warning, White Mountains
The White Mountains in New Hampshire have a well-deserved reputation as a challenging place to hike. People are always a bit surprised by this because they’re not that high in elevation, only topping out at 6,288 feet on Mt Washington. Still, people come from around the the world to train for major international expeditions here because the Whites are so formidable, particularly in winter.
What makes them so tough?
Wind and Weather
Bad weather is certainly a major factor. For example, the average wind speed on top of Mt Washingtin is 35 miles per hour, the winds on Washington exceed tropical storm force (40 mph) 110 days a year, the summit is covered in cloud 55% of the year and snow falls every month of the year. These mountains deserve respect!
Weatherwise you simply don’t hike in the Whites without carefully assessing the weather beforehand, planning days in advance. When you do get out, you need to be very alert to changes in cloud cover, white outs, thunder and lightning, hail. In cool or wet weather, hypothermia and frostbite are very real risks because the mountain summits are usually 20 degrees cooler than the valleys and the wind accelerates evaporative and convective cooling.
Lenticular Clouds Warn of Pending Rain or Hail
Avalanche Terrain
A lot of people thing that avalanche activity in the White Mountains is limited to Tuckerman and Huntington Ravines. That’s just not true. Snow avalanches occur all over the White Mountains in the King, Castle, Burt, and Ammonoosuc Ravines, in Crawford Notch, Franconia Notch, Carter Notch, Eagle Pass, the Pemigewasset, along the Kancamagus Highway, in fact anywhere where there’s a slope angle between 38 and 45 degrees. While Tuckerman and Huntington Ravines are the only places with snow rangers forecast avalanche danger, they occur throughout the White Mountains. Your best defense is to take an avalanche awareness class or avoid avalanche terrain in winter.
Cannon Mountain: Avalanche and Rockfall Zone
Trails Conditions
People new to the White Mountains are often surprised by how rugged the trails are. They’re often narrow, steep, and require good scrambling skills to ascend and descend. I know many experienced White Mountains hikers who will tell you that learning how to rock climb vastly improved their hiking footwork.
Typical White Mountain Trail: Edmund’s Path
On top of the roughness of the trails, the ascents in the high peaks are quite steep, rising over 1,000 feet per mile for miles at a time without switchbacks to provide physical or mental relief to weary hikers. The best thing to do under these circumstances is to keep your eyes down (looking up crushes all hope) and take small steps so not to exhaust your quadriceps muscles.
Mt Lincoln and Franconia Ridge
Above treeline trails are also quite exposed to the elements. While these trails are magnificent to hike in fine weather, they can be quite dangerous if the wind or weather turns on you unexpectedly. In an emergency, particularly in winter, the best thing to do it to get below treeline: most people who get below treeline survive to hike another day. Remember, the summit is always optional.
Remoteness
While there are sections of the White Mountains relatively close to major highways, a large portion is quite remote and seldom traveled. I’ve been on hikes in the north country where I haven’t seen people for days. If you decide to venture beyond the well traveled trails, make sure you hike with others, you are fully equipped, and that you’ve done your trip planning homework. Help is often not readily available and you need to develop a certain level of self sufficiency if you want to go off the beaten path.
The Appalachian Trail
Parting Thoughts
When I started hiking in the White Mountains, they honestly scared me. But there are plenty of opportunities to build your confidence and skill level gradually and safely. If you’re just getting started I recommend that he join a hiking group like the Appalachian Mountain Club or the Random Group of Hikers on Meetup.com. If you’re more experienced, I’d still recommend that you hike with others who are familiar with the territory before branching out on your own. While there are plenty of easy hikes in the Whites, things can go south amazingly quickly, unless you know the territory well and hike prepared.
The White Mountains are a great place to hike and once you get hooked….
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Nice Pics! Boulders…you learn to hate the bloody things…at least the ones you cannot walk on, errr over….uhhhh…around…. The only good one is the one you can sit on, few to be found. Switchbacks?? What’s a swithcback? Isn’t the shortest distance between two points a straight line? Ha… North Country Trails…Yes, The hill trails go straight…up. The fally flat trails are full of twists and turns. A bit backwrads if you think about it as a hiker. Yes, the views are worth it. Really great pics!
Good article. Just one large nit to pick though …. 40mph is not a hurricane using NOAA’s scale, it is a tropical storm. The lowest hurricane classification starts at 74 MPH.
That should not detract from the rest of the content though.
Thanks for the correction Jim – always thought that was a low number.
Philip, I like this post. There are a million photos you could have used to depict the toughness of the White Mountains, particularly the rocky trails, but you did choose very well. I think the most important out of this selection is to know the weather. After hiking the 48 twice now, there was never a time I didn’t check the weather in advance. By that, I mean watching it for at least 3 days in a row in advance of the hike. I think sticking to this, and always having the gear necessary for the warranted conditions just in case has gone a long way for making almost all of my trips free of problems or major concerns with the weather. If I can’t make an easy determination, I’ll usually bring that extra layer or piece of gear I might need.
I go through the exact same planning process – watching the weather. Hasn’t failed me yet. Harder of course if you’re going to be out for more than a day hike, which is when the real-time observational skills become so important – I’m a cloud watcher.
What month would you recommend if I want to plan a week of hiking?
last 2 weeks in June or the first and second week in September are usually optimal.
So wind, rain, storms, rough trails and the like. Best I get to Scotland then and train for the Whites. They look mean those Whites.
Wind speed of a sustained 74-94mph is a cat 1 hurricane
40 to 45mph is easy to judge as you start to get blown around and walking in a straight line gets hard. Been out with a group of six and we all got blown off our feet in 90mph gusts. We beat it back down the hill.
You’ll be fine Martin as long as you can manage 4,000-5,000 feet of elevation gain a day.We’ll be carrying UL packs so I’m not worried.
I do a lot of gain in the Lakes and (4000 -5000ft) Scotland a day so not worried. Just need to train hard next 12 weeks to get some real steel into my legs.
I look at it as Ben Nevis day after Day.
I’m amazed that you tackle the terrain and weather conditions in lightweight trail shoes. I couldn’t do it.
It’s all in the footwork of course, but lifting a trail runner requires far less exertion than lifting a leather boot. Switching to trail runners transformed my experience up here. I fly up these peaks.
Thanks for the shoutout for the Random Group (www.meetup.com/random-hikers).
I know you aren’t comparing but one of the discussions that I find interesting is the “what is harder, the NH48 or the ADK46″. Many people say their “home” mountains are the hardest. After doing both lists my vote is ADK46. They have steep trails, they have boulders, they have slides and avalanches, and many of them are remote.
The big difference for me though is that while the WMNF has all of these roads (93, 3, 112, and 302) that go through it creating a seemingly endless number of trailhead and route options, there are no such roads in the Adirondacks. You have to attack from the periphery.
Look at the two big hikes in the Whites – the Presidential Traverse and the Pemi Loop. For the most part you are never really that far from a road or trailhead. Once you start the big hike in the Adirondacks (Great Range Traverse) you keep getting farther away until you hit Marcy where you turn around.
They also have an Isolation/Owls Head (Allen) that is a longer hike than either one of them and almost half of their summits don’t have officially maintained or blazed trails. While they aren’t bushwhacks they aren’t the highways that lead to many of the summits in the Whites.
Don’t get me wrong I love the Whites, but while the casual hiker can easily claim the NH48 list I’m not sure that same casual hiker would easily claim the ADK46.
For the casual hiker sure – but for multi-day hikes and winter it’s probably about the same level of difficultly as the Dacks since you don’t really care about the roads or the roads are closed.
Despite the rocks, the weather, the steep trails, I love backpacking in the whites ! It just feels great up there. Peace
My name is Jiro. i’m from Japan. Nice to meet you.
I think your photo is wonderful.
I am not good at English. I’m sorry if you do not through the English meaning.
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Thanks and best regards,
jiro
Welcome Jiro. I am honored to have you say so.
I started hiking at the age of 54. I was around 12 lb.s overweight but not in condition. I have done a lot of hiking since. I have to take numerous breaks when hiking in the WM. I hiked Mt Washington for the first time last year. I saw many a young person (20′s-30′s) who had to take breaks with a few verbally complaining that they should never of agreed to starting this venture. Many others hike up and it seems like it’s no big deal physically. I come to realize that hiking never will be easy to me but I truly enjoy it. I have had times where I say ” why am I doing this to my body” but at the end of the hike I feel good about myself that I did it. My goal is to hike MW on my 60th birthday (2015) which may not be a big deal for some but it’s important to me. I hope I am healthy enough to do this.
Awesome. My mother recently asked me, “How long can you keep doing this?” I am in my early 50′s. I told her I hike with people in their 80′s in the whites. I think it’s largely attitude.
That’s funny. I also started hiking at age 54 and will be 60 in 2015. I’ve done four one-week AT section hikes in the past four years from Pearisburg to Pine Furnace Grove, and plan to thru-hike the AT in 2014. I’ve learned quite a bit from my section hikes as well as from SectionHiker and other excellent hiker blogs. Thank you Phil for sharing your knowledge.
Between what two landmarks was the photo labeled “The Appalachian Trail” taken? What other sections of the AT have similar trail conditions?
I’m planning a 2014 SOBO from Lincoln to Rutland and planning for Gorham to Lincoln after that. Knowing where the boulders are would help me develop a safer hiking plan that allows for muscle recovery and better allocation of energy.
Thanks, Phil!
That’s the Twinway between Galehead Hut and Garfield Shelter. Kind of a rough section of trail.
When the trail is all rocks and it rains some and then the trail turns to a river and then you become aware you might fall you finally realize why the Whites are tough. Its the rocks.
Great post! I’ve hiked all over North America, South America and Europe and I’ve never seen hiking as difficult as the Whites.
Just as a qualifier, Laura and I finished the 48 in July and are working on the NE 100 highest but we definitely don’t have as many miles as you Phil. My experience matches yours except I disagree about the remoteness of The Whites. I think one of the reasons there are a lot of accidents in The Whites is because they are so accessible and the proximity of commercial developments gives a false sense of safety.
That’s not to take away from the brutality. What people don’t understand is just how fast things can go from docile to dangerous. A lost glove, a frozen rope, a forgotten headlamp, or a slip are just a few examples of game-changers that can elevate the level of seriousness within minutes; even for a seasoned hiker.
I can think of dozens of examples in every season but we climbed Lost In The Sun a few weeks ago which is a slab up the side of Mt. Webster. We had done it before and wanted to bring my little sister’s boyfriend. It was a beautiful day, everything went smooth, you could see loads of tourists at the Willey House enjoying the sunshine all day…. but the day turned out to be much hotter than we expected and we did not have enough water. We could literally see visitors going in and out of the ice cream shop all day. Still, in that short time I was the most dehydrated I had ever been. Delirious, we knelt down and started drinking out of the Sacco when we finally got down to route 302 around 4PM. Still, just a short while later we were laughing about it and enjoying drinks at the Red Parka.
At 7AM we wake up in Massachusetts pour some coffee and read the news, by 11AM the 70MPH wind is so intimidating we want to cry, at 5PM we are laughing about it playing volley ball in a swimming pool. That’s something distinct about The Whites. Everything is so close. In a single weekend you can do a lot. Drive up after work on Friday night, walk into the woods during a blizzard with a headlamp and do some winter camping. Wake-up, take a shower at Pinkham, go for a hike, do some roadside ice climbing. Go see some live music and stay with a local friend. Wake up the next day and go skiing, maybe do a little ice skating on Chocurra, grab some Mexican food, and make it back to Massachusetts in time to upload the photos, do the laundry and catch the game.
All true, but you CAN get way off the beaten track if you want to. Try the Kilkenny, the Wild River Wilderness, the Dry River Wilderness, even the Great Gulf. You might as well be on the moon. I’m just saying that if you go there, make sure your skills are up to snuff.
I THOUGHT I recognized that stretch of the AT. That’s a hard one, all right. Thanks, Mike Blair, for the description of the Daks vs. the Whites. I was wondering how the two compared. I’d like to get to the Daks for some hiking one of these days.
Excellent well written informative post Phil! Nice to run into the other day!
Great spot-on post Phil!
I chuckled at your Edmund’s Path photo. The reddish broken log bottom right of the photo, at quick glance, looked like some sort of remains – I had to take a second look. First thought was “that’s what happened to the last hiker to underestimate our trails!”
No problem Liz. Just got back from our seventh trip to the Adirondacks and can’t wait to go back. Will be trying some of them in winter next time. It’s a six hour drive so when we go we stay as long as we can and do as much hiking and backpacking as possible. We were there for a week in August and climbed 15 of the 46. On 11 of them we had the summit and most of the route entirely to ourselves. On 3 of the others we saw a mother and her son (skylight) family of four (big slide), and a family of three with their dog (donaldson). The final peak was Marcy and that was a mob scene so we quickly hit the summit and continued on our way.
As Phillip just wrote in a different piece about the Kilkenny ridge backpack trip he just did, there are still low es in the Whites where you can find true wilderness and we love the Whites (Maine and Vermont too), but we love the change of pace and the different challenges that the Adirondacks provide.
After hiking Katahdin a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly realized that there’s a whole new world of hiking outside of NH. Who knew? Thanks for the Dacks descriptions, I’m chomping at the bit to get over there.
Btw, Mike, I’m the Liz that did AMC leadership training last fall. Just got my full H/B leadership status.
Fantastic Liz! Congrats.
Oh yes, there is LOTS of fantastic hiking outside of New Hampshire. LOTS of driving too, so it’s best to backpack when doing long road trips so you can maximize your trail time and sleep cheap.
Agreed! Or stay with your friends who just moved to VT. Oh, wait, that’s me. :-)
Way to go Liz. Hope to see you on the trails some time soon.
Yes, there is a whole world out there beyond the White Mountains (or I guess outside the Adirondacks if you live in upstate NY). The point is go out and explore – don’t just keep doing the same trails over and over again.