March 28, 2024
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Dramatic rescue turning point in many lives Climbers faced death on Mount Washington

Editor’s Note: Twenty years ago this week, two ice climbers disappeared in a snowstorm on Mount Washington, leading to a huge search and rescue operation that lasted three days. A volunteer searcher from Maine died in an avalanche. The climbers were found the next afternoon, nearly frozen to death. Despite permanent disabilities, both rebuilt their lives in ways as dramatic and surprising as their rescue. Meanwhile, everyone involved has struggled to make sense of the only death of a searcher in the White Mountains.

The story is based on recent interviews with many of those involved, interviews with The Associated Press at the time of the events, official reports of the search and weather records from the Mount Washington Observatory. This is the first of three parts.

MOUNT WASHINGTON, N.H. – Far up Mount Washington, above the trees and the steep ravines, the two searchers were following footprints that were rapidly filling with windblown snow.

And as they tracked two missing climbers, the weather station on the summit was recording the highest wind gust of the day – 101 mph. It was 15 degrees below zero.

The wind was blowing most of the 10 inches of fresh snow off the upper slopes, creating drifts many feet deep below.

The searchers were members of the volunteer Mountain Rescue Service. Michael Hartrich, 30, was a carpenter and a climber who lived in North Conway. Albert Dow, 28, was a professional guide and climbing instructor who lived in Brownfield, Maine. Frequent climbing partners, the two had pioneered a rock-climbing route called Wanderlust near North Conway the previous summer.

That morning they had climbed a steep, icy, mountainside gully, the same one the missing climbers had ascended two days earlier. At the top they found a piece of climbing gear and the footprints, which headed south and disappeared into a snowdrift.

As Dow and Hartrich headed back down to the shelter of the trees, a search coordinator radioed them to use an alternate route where the risk of an avalanche would be less. They were headed there when a waist-deep slab of snow broke free 40 to 70 feet above them.

The avalanche traveled about 350 feet, sweeping the two through trees and over rocks. Hartrich tried to stay on the surface and managed to clear an opening around his face.

When it settled, the snow set hard as a snow bank. Hartrich began yelling. After struggling for about half an hour, he got one arm free and used the radio on his chest to call for help.

Rescuers arrived quickly from several directions. The first thing they saw was Hartrich’s mitten sticking out of the snow. They dug him out.

After 45 minutes of searching, they found Dow upside down under the snow, six feet from where Hartrich had stopped. His mouth was full of snow.

As Misha Kirk, an Appalachian Mountain Club employee, tried to resuscitate Dow, his fellow climbers and search-team members stood on the slope, some weeping.

After a half-hour in the brutal cold and wind, Kirk gave up.

Dow had died instantly of a broken neck, probably from hitting a tree or rock in the avalanche.

While Dow and Hartrich had been following the footprints south across the mountainside, the missing climbers were more than 5 miles to the north, and a couple thousand feet lower.

They already had spent two nights outside without food or water, sleeping bag or tent.

They had driven from Pennsylvania in a Datsun pickup on Friday, Jan. 22, 1982. They spent the night at Harvard Cabin, about a two-hour hike up the mountain. They planned to use it as a base for a weekend of ice climbing.

They were expert climbers – Hugh Herr, 17, was one of the best young rock climbers in the East. Jeffrey Batzer, 20, had less experience but was strong and skilled. They had climbed together on Mount Washington and elsewhere in the White Mountains the previous winter.

The storm already was moving in when they arrived. Though puny compared to more famous, much taller mountains, 6,288-foot Mount Washington is home to some of the world’s worst weather, including the highest surface wind speed ever recorded, 231 mph. The inhuman weather at the summit that weekend was not especially unusual for winter.

On Saturday morning Batzer and Herr climbed O’Dell Gully in Huntington Ravine. There was less risk of avalanche there than on other climbs, and it was sheltered from the wind. They left overnight gear in the cabin and took climbing equipment and a pack with extra clothes, food and a sleeping bag.

They left the pack with the sleeping bag below the gully, reasoning that a lighter load would let them get up and down faster, limiting their exposure to the cold and to avalanches.

They moved quickly and had little trouble going up the icy cliff, except Batzer dropped a mitten. He wasn’t overly concerned; that hand still had a glove liner and a wool glove with the fingertips cut off.

They reached the top of the cliff about noon and ducked behind some rocks. Instead of heading back down to the cabin, as planned, they decided to head to the summit, about 1,300 feet above.

Getting to the summit would require little technical skill, but it meant exposure to the wind, which was blowing 64 mph at the summit that afternoon. It was 1 degree.

Soon after the climbers left the rocks, swirling snow cut the visibility to near zero. They had no compass or map – they aren’t needed on an ice climb – and they knew little about the mountain’s geography above the ravines.

On a flat area a couple of hundred feet below the summit, they decided to turn around and head down. They thought they were descending into Huntington Ravine or the ravine to its south, Tuckerman. Instead, they were heading north.

Without recognizing it, they crossed the auto road that takes tourists to the summit in summer. They dropped into the Great Gulf, a wide glacial bowl on the northeast side of the mountain.

In the gulf, the snow was so deep in places they had to almost swim through it. Travel was easier near a frozen stream, but Herr broke through the ice several times.

When they reached the flats at the bottom of the gulf, they knew they were lost and dumped their rope and climbing gear to make traveling easier. The small trees were so thick they had to tunnel through the snow under branches.

Herr was afraid he’d freeze if he stopped walking, so they kept going until about 1 a.m. Then they cut spruce branches and spread them near a rock formation. They pulled the branches around them and huddled together for warmth.

The carekeeper at Harvard Cabin alerted officials the two hadn’t returned. Plans were made to begin a search Sunday morning. State Fish and Game officers, U.S. forest rangers and Appalachian Mountain Club employees would participate.

The searchers assumed Batzer and Herr were on or near the gully they had climbed, so they called the Mountain Rescue Service to help. Of the several volunteer search groups in the White Mountains, the elite Mountain Rescue has the most experience with difficult terrain and extreme weather.

Sunday morning, Batzer and Herr, who had slept little, got up to push through the snow again. They came to a trail sign. One arrow pointed to Pinkham Notch, site of an Appalachian Mountain Club lodge just off Route 16, another to Madison Hut, one of the club’s rustic shelters for hikers.

They decided to head to the hut because it was closer. They didn’t know it was closed for winter and that it was almost 2,500 feet higher up the mountain.

Meanwhile, the searchers were making limited progress. Swirling snow prevented them from seeing where they were putting their feet. A search by helicopter or plane was impossible.

After several hours of struggling, Batzer and Herr gave up trying to reach the hut. They returned to the trail intersection and made a shelter under some rocks.

By Monday, the day Dow would die, Herr was in tough shape, his energy depleted from getting wet.

As the storm moved off, arctic air moved in. Temperatures at the summit dropped through the night, from minus 15 at midnight to minus 27 at 7 a.m. Monday.

They had slept with their bare feet in each others’ armpits for warmth. Still, their feet had swollen and Herr could get neither of his boots on; his legs were frozen below his knees. After more than an hour of effort, Batzer got one boot on and put an extra sock on the other foot. He tried to head toward Pinkham Notch, but couldn’t follow the trail under the snow. After crossing his own tracks several times, he returned to Herr.

The two had no idea anyone was looking for them.

Tuesday morning, it was 12 below zero at the summit. The winds had diminished and visibility had improved. For the first time, a National Guard helicopter joined the search.

Herr was barely conscious, but he and Batzer were encouraged by the sound. Batzer spread out his jacket so it could be seen from the air.

But the helicopter stayed south of the ridge that separates Great Gulf from Huntington Ravine.

In midafternoon, Appalachian Mountain Club employee Cam Bradshaw was snowshoeing in Great Gulf. Bradshaw, 28, was out for fun on a clear winter day, not looking for Batzer and Herr.

She noticed the footprints Batzer left when he tried to reach Pinkham Notch and began following his confused route. Then she saw his jacket and heard a faint “help.” She saw two pale, chapped faces under their shelter.

Batzer was ecstatic; Herr could say little. She gave them raisins, water, a vest and a wool shirt, then sprinted out the trail to alert the rescuers. Time was crucial -darkness was approaching and Herr and Batzer were in bad shape.

She met some campers and sent them back to Batzer and Herr. She met some skiers and sent them ahead.

When word of the discovery finally reached officials, the helicopter was preparing to return to Concord, 75 miles south. Instead it headed to Great Gulf.

Unable to land because of tall trees, the helicopter lowered two men on a hoist. The first to get to the climbers was Misha Kirk, who, 26 hours earlier, had tried to revive Albert Dow.

Batzer was lifted into the helicopter in a harness. Forty-five minutes later, under darkness, Herr was brought up in a litter. The helicopter was so low on fuel it had to land before flying to Littleton Hospital, 26 miles away.

The young men arrived at the hospital with body temperatures of 94 degrees. Masks pumping warm, humid air were put over their faces and they were put under heated blankets and given warmed intravenous lactate solution.

An hour and a half later, their body temperatures had returned to normal, but doctors were deeply concerned about frostbite on Batzer’s hands and both men’s feet and lower legs.

It was months before the extent of the permanent damage to their bodies would become clear.

The emotional effects of the five days on Mount Washington – on Batzer, Herr, Albert Dow’s family and New Hampshire’s search and rescue community – would be just as profound, and continue to unfold 20 years later.


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