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I havent been up on Washington, but we had planned to do that climb, many, many winters ago. I've been up on a few of the others though. On a hot july day you're likely to run into snow on the way up some of these mountains, and they aren very tall mountains! They are however very differwnt from say the rockie mountains. If you want an inexpensive clue as to how everest might feel, try going from sea level to pikes peak, just climb a short distance up hill as fast as you can. Pikes peak isn't even as tall as everest, but for a sea level flat-lander, it's a taste. Base camp is around 16,000 feet. Some people aren't physically equipped to endure even that. It takes months of training at high altitude for a person's body to acclimate, and one of the ways it does so is to add new red blood cells to carry oxygen in thinner air. There's no way you can walk around the block daily at sea level and think you're fit for everest, but people try. These people who climb big mountains are not novices at climbing. They have years of training, and yet even they die. People who live there all their lives, die. Some people have a need to defy death. It can be exhilarating to succeed. All it takes for me is a triple loop rollercoaster. Once was enough! 😅🤣😂 The next time I want to see the world from a mountain top, I know a place in my own back yard (the entire usa is one's back yard).

Some people have a need to defy death. It can be exhilarating to succeed.

I believe I posted this story at one time but really need to more formally write up what I believe to be my near-death experience while hiking - also in New Hampshire.

In a nutshell, it was in the mid 1990s and I had planned a long hike the weekend my wife and her mother had the kids down in Disneyland (as an aside, I HATE Disney and always looked to avoid going - especially when in in-law is involved). But I digress. I rented a time share up there, a suite with a hot tub. The plan was to take this hike in the middle of winter on a Saturday and then spend Sunday sitting in the hot tub watching playoff football.

I had planned this for months so when I got up there Friday afternoon and heard about a snowstorm the next day, I was rather bummed. Later that night, the forecast changed and the storm was not supposed to hit in full force until late afternoon. So I took a shot at it, getting up early and was at the trail head just before sunrise. 7 hours was what I reckoned it would take and I had a good nine hours before it started getting dark again so had a cushion built in. I was in best shape of my life and walked that trail before (not too many hills) so wasn't worried. It was a loop trail in that you made a large circle and ended up where you started.

Suffice to say, the storm moved in hours earlier. As I was eating my lunch at about the 3/4 point, I looked up and saw that the horizon was a wall of white - the snow was moving in.

Very quickly, it turned to near whiteout condition and I lost the trail as the markers were coated with snow. Had to use my compass to head east, where I knew there was a north-south highway. After a couple hours of stumbling around in the woods, I finally came out onto the road and then had to guess whether my car was north or south of my position. I guessed north and turned out right but I almost walked right past the trailhead as several inches of snow covered everything and it was nearly completely dark.

I was incredibly exhausted and not thinking too clearly. I also had a bit of an adventure getting out of the trailhead parking area as my car got stuck in a snowdrift getting on the highway. Fortunately I had a shovel in my trunk and was able to finally get out of there.

Another hour or two out there in those conditions, I think I would have just collapsed and not been found until spring.

Never told my family about this because the result would have been years of I-told-you-so type behavior out of them as they had always nagged me about how stupid it is to go into the deep woods alone. But I love solitary hikes. There's something about getting out into the wilderness all by yourself that appeals to me.