This morning I read about a woman that unfortunately lost her life while hiking in the White Mountains. It’s a very tragic situation but also a real risk when winter hiking, especially solo.

This story reminded me of a trip report I had been working on for my blog. I never actually posted it because it was well…just another winter trip report and the trip didn’t go off as planned. The working title was “winter backpacking: plan, revise, repeat…lessons learned about surviving the COLD”. The unfinished post had been in my drafts queue waiting to be published. This morning after I read the news article about this hiker losing her life, I reflected on my recent trip to the Catskills and whether or not I should have “called the trip” because of terrible weather.

This overnight backpacking trip took place in the Catskills, New York the second to last week of January. I’ve done this particular trip every winter for the past 4 years and really like the route. The first day is 1500 ft of elevation over 3 miles or so up an old truck road that tops out at the Hunter Mountain Fire Tower. From there it’s another 4-5 miles to our campsite near the lovely Diamond Notch Falls area. The second day Is the real challenge heading up the Devils Path over Westkill Mountain (3,880′) down the other side and back to our cars. A total of 16.7 miles over 2 days with a full winter pack. However, this weekend the mountains had other plans.

The morning temperature was zero degrees and the winds were forecasted to be up to 30-40mph. Our group was small, made up of 4 experienced four season backpackers. Heading up the jeep road towards the fire tower was hard work but doable since snowmobiles had packed down the trail. Until we reached about 3500 ft then all that lay in front of us was a foot or more of fresh powdery snow, lovely to look but not so easy to hike through with a heavy pack and snowshoes strapped to your boots. We switched to a rolling lead, 25 paces then fall out and let the next in line break trail. The rotation helps even out the workload and catch some rest as we roll the leader. With only four people this was still quite tough.

At 11:30 am we reached the Hunter Mountain fire tower and took a minute to regroup. The wind was whipping and we needed to keep moving in order to stay warm. At this time one guy in our group mentioned that his feet were getting really cold. He was also getting fatigued from carrying his pack and was contemplating turning back.

Knowing the route and consulting the map, I knew that further along the trail was fairly flat and there was a lean to in 2 more miles. We discussed the option of getting to the lean to, taking care of his feet and making a decision from there how we would proceed. We all agreed. We pushed on and broke trail for another two miles to the Devils acre lean to. Excited to have reached the 3 sided structure but slightly disappointed to see the floor of it with 6-8 inches of snow drifts and an umbrella, of all things!

We worked quickly to get our friend onto an insulated mat and into his -25 degree sleeping bag. Shortly later we started pumping him with snacks and hot beverages. Before long his feet began to get toasty warm. Thankfully, at no point did this guy ever exhibit signs of hypothermia. His spirits were good and his feet warm but he didn’t think he could hike any further so it was then we all decided the best thing was to stay put, set up camp and hike back out the way we came to our cars.

Setting up camp is usually a no brainer…whip out the tent and wholla! Well, in 30-40 mph winds it ain’t so easy. I have a 4 season free standing tent which I couldn’t get to stay put! Every time I got it on the ground the wind would just HOWL and flatten it out. Trying to put stakes in the ground to hold it down proved useless, the snow was a fine powder with no sticking power and the ground frozen solid. Finally, I just tied a guy line to a small tree and began hunting for large branches to weigh down the other guy lines. An hour later I finally had the tent up and pitched. It was now 2pm!

As we all sat – for hours – in the lean to we melted snow for water, ate our food, talked gear (of course) and all agreed that these conditions were really challenging. The wind was absolutely blasting, which made the temperatures plummet into the negatives, Making even the simplest tasks seem monumentally difficult.

We eventually all got our tents anchored down but the wind continued to whip it up! At one point I was in my sleeping bag and the side of my tent was touching my face because the wind was blowing with such force. We still all managed to get a great nights sleep despite the noise and awoke to a very cold but windless morning! We packed up and started 5 or so miles back to where we started. Thankfully the wind had not blown in the trail we broke out the previous day.
We made it to our cars within a few short hours, with smiles on our faces, happy that we were able to spend the night in the woods, even if it wasn’t the trip we had planned on.

As I drove home I reflected on this trip and for me it served as a reminder of how flexible I need to stay during winter hikes and overnight trips. Even though I plan a fairly detailed itinerary, bring a map and all my gear I think the most important thing I can do is to remain flexible…each trip unfolds differently.