Brian Gagnon was certain he was going to die. He wasn’t scared, he just knew he wasn’t going to make it. He was 24 years old and acutely aware of the severity of his current situation. The temperature had dropped to almost -20 degrees Fahrenheit. The windchill made it feel like 50 below. The winds on the ridge above him were registering over 100 miles per hour and he was more than 6 miles from the nearest road, lost in the White Mountains somewhere off the Franconia Ridge near the summit of Mount Lafayette. It was after 6 p.m. and already pitch-black. There was no way a helicopter would be cresting the ridge in such extreme wind to discover him. No time for rescuers to hike in that night.
Gagnon had already done everything he could think of to keep himself alive—bushwhacked off the raging summit into the trees, tried to start a fire (only to see the embers blow out and swirl around his head), followed the sound of water, remained covered in his full gear, and clambered into his sleeping bag on semi-flat ground (breaking his zipper in the process). He was exhausted and freezing. His fingers were blistered. His back ached. Leaning into the wind earlier had exposed a patch of skin on his lower back to the dangerous cold. Shivering, he held his sleeping bag closed and concentrated all his strength on staying warm. There was nothing left to do but wait.
THE HIKE IN
Ten hours earlier, at 8 a.m. on the morning of Jan. 20, 2007, Gagnon’s day had started like those of millions of hikers before him—at the Lafayette Campground parking lot in the White Mountains’ Franconia Notch. He and Ryan Duhaime, 23, and Marc Smith, 22—two friends from Plymouth State University—had decided to hike a variation of the Franconia Ridge Loop, one of the most popular day hikes in New Hampshire. They planned to hike up the Old Bridle Path to the summit of 5,260-foot Mount Lafayette, across the 3.8-mile Franconia Ridge Trail—over Mount Lincoln and Little Haystack—before continuing on to Mount Liberty and their campsite at Liberty Spring.
Their first day’s trek would cover 8 miles of rough terrain, four summit peaks, and a 2,450-foot rise in elevation. It was an ambitious hike, and none of them had done the route in winter before, but each had some hiking and winter camping experience. Gagnon had the most. When they set out, carrying sleeping bags, extra clothes and food, Thermarest sleeping pads, flashlights, an AMC map, GPS, and a stove and tent (the last two lugged by Gagnon’s friends), his thoughts were only of the spectacular trail ahead.
DANGEROUS BEAUTY
The Franconia Ridge offers some of the most beautiful hiking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and also, because of its exposure to the weather, some of its most dangerous. It spans 5 miles from Mount Lafayette to Mount Flume and encompasses the tallest peaks in the Franconia Range. The 28th edition of AMC’s White Mountain Guide appropriately dubs the highest part of the ridge—running from 5,260-foot Mount Lafayette (the Whites’ sixth highest peak) to 4,780-foot Little Haystack Mountain—“a Gothic masterpiece.” “It suggests the ruins of a gigantic medieval cathedral,” the guidebook says. “The peaks along the high serrated ridge are like towers supported by soaring buttresses that rise from the floor of the notch.” The views from the ridge showcase the Presidential Range and sweep over the expansive Pemigewasset Wilderness. The ridge is also surprisingly easy to access via I-93, no more than a day’s drive from more than 70 million people. There is good reason so many hikers flock to the Franconia Ridge, sometimes as many as 700 a day.
There is also good reason why the Franconia Ridge is so dangerous. Traversing three mountain peaks at its highest point, it rises well above treeline, across 1.7 miles of exposed trail. From the summit of Mount Lafayette to the summit of Little Haystack the narrow ridge is rocky and wide open, as exposed to the elements as you can get. When storms and fronts tear through the Whites, the Franconia Ridge feels the full effect. Any hiker on the ridge will too. Big lightning storms. Hundred mile-per-hour winds. Blowing snow, freezing temperatures, and thick ice that covers everything from trail to cairns to scrub trees. Being caught in a storm on the ridge is as treacherous as being a sailor caught in a tempest at sea.
