PINKHAM NOTCH, N.H. — The Iraq war had taken his leg. And it had taken four of his buddies.
On Thursday, as US Marine veteran Keith Zeier slowly made his way to the summit of Mount Washington — an effort to honor the former sergeant’s fallen colleagues and raise money for their families billed as Ascents of Honor — an avalanche nearly took his life.
Comments
I live about 20 miles from Mt. Washington as the crow flies. Last night it was -7 degrees here on the ground, so the -10 reported on the mountain is undoubtedly an understatement. What was the organization that sent these guys up in the face of a weather forecast like that thinking? Even without the avalalance, it's a miracle none of these people died up there last night!
-10 is one thing. The Avalanche Forecast for Thursday should have been the showstopper. Huntington Ravine was rated "Moderate" with "human triggered avalanches...possible". Some aspects on Tuckerman's Ravine were rated "Considerable". In retrospect, perhaps not the best day to take 4 rope teams in a row up Central Gully.
Should add - hindsight is 20/20 of course. Word online is that they had a briefing that morning with Snow Rangers, so they knew what the conditions were and made a decision to go ahead with their climb. I also wonder why they were still in the Gully at 5:30? Kind of late in the day to be heading uphill...
I was at Pinkham the day this happened and what was not reported was conditions were awful Thursday morning. Very cloudy, high winds and the temp at the summit was -23 with windchills at -100. The clouds cleared around 3 and that's when the group started to climb. It was much too late in the day to start the climb and they should not have gone up the ravine that time of day. The good news everyone was brought down the mountain safely, but they no business being up there.