The two friends had hiked New Hampshire's challenging Mount Washington trail a month ago. They returned and did it again Sunday after trekking through neighboring peaks in the White Mountains. Both veteran hikers, the women were an hour behind schedule on their descent and losing daylight, but they had warm clothing, headlamps, and other gear. Then the wind kicked in. The temperature dropped. They were in waist-deep snow and whiteout conditions. They were lost on the tallest mountain in the Northeast, known for its extreme, changeable weather.
"We got to a point where we were literally, like crawling on our bellies to try to get to the next point and just struggling so much that it wasn't working," Kathyrn McKee told the AP. After about an hour of trying to rescue themselves, McKee, 51, of Southborough, Massachusetts, and Beata LeLacheur, 54, of Westborough, Massachusetts, called 911. They reached New Hampshire Fish and Game conservation officers, who plotted their GPS coordinates and directed them toward the trail—just 34 feet away. It didn't work. "They ended up on the trail several times but could not follow it as it had been completely erased by wind and snow," said Sgt. Matthew Holmes of the Fish and Game Department.
After multiple attempts trying to locate the trail and several phone calls starting around 6pm, "the two needed to huddle up in the snow to keep warm and await assistance," he said. The temperature at the 6,288-foot summit was 2 degrees below zero, with sustained winds of 50 to 60 mph at the time, Holmes said. McKee and LeLacheur were stuck at an elevation of about 5,000 feet and sat there with the wind blowing on them for about six hours. "I was terrified that my friend may pass away in front of me and, you know, or I might pass away, " McKee said.
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By late Sunday, the Mount Washington State Park snowcat, a ski resort groomer-type vehicle, started up the mountain's auto road with nine rescuers and arrived at the summit just before midnight. Crews snowshoed their way through the wind-blown snow, with Holmes noting "the going was slow due to the tremendous effort required to break trail in the deep snow." McKee and LeLacheur were found just before 2am. They had suffered frostbite, mostly to their hands. Holmes said both women were prepared for a winter hike, had emergency gear and had winter hiking experience. But they didn't expect they would lose the trial. "We feel really awful about having to make that (911) call, but it did save our lives, and we're eternally grateful," McKee said of their rescuers.
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