When I asked Gary what time it was, and he said 3:30pm, we knew we were in trouble. Big trouble. Big honkin’ life-threatening trouble. On one hand, we’d already skirted certain death numerous times on this day. But now we realized that we were an hour and a half past our safety time. 3:30pm, and we were finally emerging from Huntington’s Ravine, dog tired and still an hour from the summit.
Two minutes after our realization, our trail angel appeared on the trail above us.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Huntington’s Ravine Trail is the toughest trail in the White Mountains. It is also my favorite. I’d hiked it twice before in my 20s. My memories of those events are filled with fatigue, surely, but also with great accomplishment. It was a trail experience that I wanted to share with my friend, Gary. So, this year’s hooky hike was going to be Huntington’s Ravine Trail.
It was a mistake. This trail, with its technical climbing and exposed rock scrambles is beyond Gary’s comfort zone. The fact that he conquered it in the end is a testament to his will and his ability to face his fears and adapt. But, it was a mistake to even attempt it.
Gary’s mistake was in not reading the trail description until we were sitting at a restaurant in Glen, NH, minutes from the trail head.
My mistake was relying on 20 year old memories of the trail. I discovered to my horror that my memories of that trail I’d hiked two decades ago were worthless. The terrain of the northern Presidentials is a dynamic one. 20 years worth of ice and snow and melt and runoff and avalanches had altered the terrain. Easy spots had disappeared. I remember, with vivid clarity, stretches of packed dirt among the greenery to the right of a boulder-strewn area known as the Fan. Those packed dirt areas are gone, replaced with rocks and boulders and other debris. Needless to say, this impacted our ability to make good time.
Still, we both conquered the Huntington’s Ravine Trail.
But, it was a near run thing.
For me, the day started at 3:30am with a quick shower. After getting my food and water prepped and packed, I hit the road and picked Gary up at his house. From there, we drove north.
In spite of a weather report that reported clear skies, it rained during the southern New Hampshire part of our ride. By the time we got to a breakfast restaurant in Glen, NH, the rain had stopped, but the clouds were low. Mount Washington is almost never clear. This didn’t bode well.
After breakfast, we drove to Pinkham Notch, signed in with our itinerary and inquired about the trail conditions. Gary was nervous.
We started hiking the Tuckerman’s Ravine Trail at 8:30am. Almost immediately, I remembered why I hate the Tuckerman’s Ravine Trail. It is a wide rock-stewn trail with a constant moderate grade. It is rather boring at the lower elevations and the numerous softball-sized rocks make the hike difficult. Meanwhile, the clear skies that had been promised were nowhere in evidence. A thick gray cloak kept the mountaintop hidden from view.
We eventually came to the trail junction with the Huntington’s Ravine Trail and the change was immediate. The HRT starts off as a narrow path that winds its way through the trees at a level grade. While that level grade does not last, it feels more like a wilderness trail. The smell of balsam and pine is strong in the air and it is just a more interesting nature trail.
Our first problem came at a stream crossing. There were a couple of ways across, but they involved wet rocks and the stream was running strong with many drops off those rocks into over a foot of water. It took us fifteen minutes to make the crossing, partly because Gary does not trust the traction of his boots. He wound up taking them off and wading, requiring a stop to dry his feet and put his socks and boots back on. Meanwhile, a foursome caught up to us and crossed the stream in two minutes. This set the tone for the rest of the day.
The hike from this point of the trail up to the base of the ravine was delightful. It followed the stream for quite a bit of its length and the sound of rushing water was quite soothing. The trail became much steeper in spots requiring a couple of rest spots. Personally, I was so jazzed that I did not notice the increased grade of the trail until my legs started getting cramps. In spite of this, we finally made the base of the ravine.
Reaching the base of the ravine was an alleluia moment. The clouds had risen such that only the very rim of the ravine was obscured by wispy light cloud. Below that, the entire ravine wall could be seen. It was awe-inspiring and a little threatening.
The base of the ravine is strewn with house-sized boulders. The HRT picks and winds its way between and sometimes under them. Before we subjected ourselves to that, we climbed up on top of one of the first boulders and had our lunch. From our vantage point, we could see the foursome from the stream crossing making their way up to, and over, the Fan. We spent about half an hour having lunch and detailing our plans. We decided that we needed to reach the top of the ravine before 2pm in order to have a realistic chance at the summit. As it wasn’t noon yet, we figured we could reach the top of the ravine in two hours.
We never had a chance. What followed were four straight hours of hard climbing.
After lunch, we telescoped our trekking poles closed and lashed them to our packs. The terrain from this point on would not allow us the luxury of using poles. From this point on, we would be using both our hands and our feet.
The continuation of our hike saw us picking our way around and under the boulders on the ravine floor. After a few minutes of this, and getting stuck a couple of times in rocky wedges, we made it to the Fan.
The Fan is a boulder field. The trail took us across this boulder field and required us to climb and rock hop our way forward. Going was slow, but the trail would soon enter the greenery where I remembered there being an easy part.
As I mentioned before, there was no easy part. The path within the greenery was strewn with more difficult rocky terrain. The climb remained slow.
After what seemed to be an eternity, we finally got to the tricky part. At the base of the ravine wall, the HRT goes up a 45° rock face for close to 200′ in elevation. It is the most difficult part of an already difficult trail. This is where Gary blinked.
The rock face is not a smooth one for its entirety. There are numerous clefts and chutes with handholds and footholds. However, the first steps you take on this rock face are a scramble up a nearly smooth surface. As I mentioned before, Gary doesn’t trust the traction of his boots. With rock scrambles, such trust is a requirement.
After giving the trail route a try, Gary decided to try to climb up the rock face at a different spot. Meanwhile, I made my way up the rock face to a level spot and dropped my pack. After doing so, I backtracked a bit and found a spot to sit down and offer Gary encouragement.
Now, before I go on, I cannot overstate the difficulty of this section of trail. At times, I had to use fingertip handholds in sliver cracks in the rock to pull myself up and over smooth and worn ledges. At times, I was using the barest edge of the sole of my boots to support my next move. All this with a backpack on, the weight of which wants to pull you backwards. It’s tricky and risky.
So, there I sat as Gary tried to start his climb up the rock face. After a few minutes of watching him confront his fear of heights, which I, until then, knew nothing about, and calling out tips and encouragement to him, he asked me to come down and give him a hand.
Gut check time. Ascending is one thing; you’re fighting gravity the whole time. Descending is quite another. And I have my own height-related fears to battle as well.
But, my friend is stuck on a very unforgiving mountain. So, I spider-walked my way down the rock face, trying one path down, getting stuck, climbing back up and trying another. After a few minutes of that, I finally made it down to Gary.
After trying a few tricks and offering encouragements and getting nowhere, I offered to take his pack. He agreed and we carefully made the transfer while perched on our precarious positions.
His pack must have weighed between 40 and 50 pounds!! Gary is the type of hiker who brings everything b/c he might need it. I don’t. I follow the 80/20 rule. Food, water, layers, camera, first aid kit. Pack light to move fast.
Only now I had his pack. I tried to put it on while standing on my shelf of rock, but I couldn’t sling it around and put it on. So, I climbed back up the rock face with his pack hanging off one shoulder. At one point, the weight of it almost made me lose my balance in the middle of a rock scramble. For a split second, I teetered on the edge of what would have been a fatal tumble down the rock.
But I made it and dropped his pack next to mine. I then began to move back down the rock face again to help him out. However, without the weight and bulk of his pack, he was already climbing up behind me.
As he climbed closer to me, he came to the tricky part which almost claimed my life with his pack and had required a fingertip hold on the rock to get over the first time. Instead of trying it himself and not being comfortable with my suggestions at all, he asked me if he could use my legs as handholds.
Gut check time again. I’d never done anything like this before and I’d heard stories of hiking partners who fall and pull their partner down with them. Still, he’s still in trouble and there’s no going back now. So, I got myself into a good position with firm handholds and laid down on the rock. He then grabbed my ankles and pulled himself over the rock. It was easier than I thought it would be.
I soon lost it in the flood of relief:
Me: Dude, that’s the last time time I let you grab my ankles. 
Gary: Hey! Be thankful I didn’t just climb up your body.
Me: Hey! Give me a couple of minutes and some dirty thoughts and I could have given you a better handhold. 
And there I was, laying down on an inclined rock face, laughing hysterically and slapping the rock next to me. Gary, too, was laughing hard at the whole situation.
The laughter was short-lived. The rest of the hike to the top of the ravine wall was an seemingly endless series of exposed rock and boulder climbs. In numerous cases, we had to rely on the three-point method of keeping at least three points of contact with a rock. More than once, I found myself hanging by questionable handholds while trying to adjust my feet on the slimmest of cracks.
But, I’d done that before. Deep, deep down, I was having fun. I found myself able to conquer the same terrain I’d conquered 20 years ago. Gary had a very hard time with it, though. I frequently had to wait for him to negotiate some tricky climbs. On the other hand, truth be told, I was getting increasingly tired.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, the very worst part of the whole trip occurred within 500′ of the ravine rim. We lost the trail.
We hit a section of trail that was poorly blazed. At one point, I got stuck and barely discovered a faded arrow that had been spray-painted on the rock some years ago. After following that marker, I got stuck. Gary then noticed what looked like a worn series of hand and footholds in the rock above us. So, after a quick discussion, Gary climbed up and I followed.
It was a seeming dead end. We found ourselves on a grassy ledge with no prospects and no way to get back down. To the right was a precipitous drop into a deep chasm. The top offered minimal prospects. The left offered a bit of hope. Gary was tired, however, so I decided to go left. When we left the trail at its last known position, it would have continued left, so left was the best way to relocate the trail.
Moving left from our ledge required pressing my body against the rock face and shuffling my feet on a grass ledge barely 6 inches wide while using my fingertips to probe for handholds. Luckily, there were plenty. And, just as luckily, after getting across the ledge and climbing up a difficult spot, I found the trail and was able to climb up to a wide solid shelf of rock. Gary soon followed my route and made it up to the rocky shelf as well.
Here, we took a quick break. Looking around, we noticed for the first time, that the sky was absolutely clear. We had 90-mile visibility into Maine. It was beautiful.
But we still had a ways to go. The trail continued upward over more broken rocky terrain. So, after a few pics, we put our packs back on and continued on.
Somewhere on this stretch of trail, after yet another harrowing climb over or against a boulder, I said a prayer. It was a very simple prayer as prayers go. “Lord. I’m tired. I don’t know how much more I can take.”
I was exhausted. On two other occasions before losing the trail, I had to put myself in a position to either give Gary a hand or let him use my ankles as handholds again. But, we had no choice. There are no other trails to take at this point and no way back down.
About fifteen or so minutes after continuing our hike from the wide ledge, we finally reached the rim of the ravine. The trail almost immediately transformed itself into a typical alpine trail with numerous cairns and talus. Out came the trekking poles. It was at this time that I asked Gary what time it was. 3:30pm. Our contingency plan was to take the Alpine Garden Trail and descend via Tuckerman’s Ravine Trail if we hit the Alpine Garden Trail at 2:00. Now that it was 3:30, if we followed that plan, we’d be coming off the mountain at night. We were hosed.
It was here that I changed the plan. We could continue on to the summit and take one of the hiker shuttles down. It would cost us money, but it would definitely be worth it. The bad news was that we didn’t know when the auto road would be closed and we still had about one mile and 700′ of elevation to hike to reach the summit. And we were tired. Worst case beyond that, we’d just hike the auto road down and pound our ankles and feet into dust. And still come off the mountain at night.
As was the case since lunch all those hours ago, we had no choice. We were committed. So, onward and upward we hiked.
It was then that we saw our trail angel, in the form of a hiker by the name of Bob Corbett. Bob, inexplicably, was hiking *down* the HRT toward us. No one hikes down the HRT. Not unless a thunderstorm is chasing you off the mountain, and even then it would be suicide. Yet, a hiker was indeed hiking down towards us.
As he approached, I yelled out a hello, then asked him, “Pardon my being so frank, but do you know what trail you’re on?”
“Yes. The Huntington’s Ravine Trail.”
“Oh. Are you actually going to hike down the trail?”
“Oh no. I’m just going to hike down a bit and take some pictures.”
“I wouldn’t. See that cairn. The trail gets nasty past that point.”
“Really? That’s different from what I remember. Of course, the last time I hiked this trail was 20 years ago.”
“Me, too! Let me tell you now. It’s changed.”
We then got to talking about the trail as it was back then. Our memories were the same. Gary then asked him about how we were going to take the hiker shuttle down. He then offered to take us down himself in the back of his pickup truck. It turns out that his wife was up the trail at the junction with the Alpine Garden Trail and that they were going to drive to the top and then down. He also offered to drive us to the top as well.
And there we were, saved, by our very own trail angel. Rejuvenated with the knowledge that our day was soon over, we hiked up to the auto road and enjoyed our trip to the summit where the 360° visibility was unmatched. We could see into Maine, Vermont and Canada. It was the clearest day I’ve encounted on Mount Washington ever.
After Gary took quite a few pics from the top, we rode back down, where I almost died from hypothermia in the back of the pickup truck. Fuck, was that wind cold!
The trip home was uneventful. After thanking our trail angel for his kindness, we hit the rest room at the Pinkham Notch visitor center and went to N. Conway for dinner.
You know how people suddenly lose it when they realize that they survived something? Well, once Gary and I got out of the car to go into the restaurant, Gary just started laughing hysterically. Then I did. A couple of fools who both faced their fears, made some serious mistakes and still survived another day. On the plus side, we never panicked and we always had contingency plans. Plus we learned something new. The Huntington’s Ravine Trail is not for everyone.
Definitely not.
