The trip started 4:30am Friday morning in Philly. We drove in the rain
for most of the trip. The weather report for the evening
and night was calling for more rain (2 - 3 inches more),
dropping temperatures and winds gusting to 80mph. A cold front was
moving in. The
current temperature was somewhere in the low
fifties or high forties. We geared up and began hiking the Great
Gulf Wilderness trail around
3pm that afternoon in the
rain. Sometime around 4 o'clock the beginning of the cold front made
itself known with lightening and rumbling
thunder through
the valley. By 5 o'clock we were soaked, it was getting dark and we
were getting cold. I started asking myself and the
guys
"when do you realize you're not hard-core enough for this?"
We found a large erratic boulder we could take temporary shelter
under and
discussed our next move. Jay and Chris had a
tent with a mesh roof and no ground cloth. That's not good for
pouring rain and cold, but they
were willing to tough it
out. We weren't quite were we wanted to be for a base camp, but
comfort levels were quickly erroding. Jeff took control
and
suggested we find a spot to camp where we were. With some food
and dry in our tents tomorrow would be a new day. We found
another
large erratic boulder and a high and dry spot near
it just big enough for both our tents. We set up the tents
(nearly on top of each other), then
made dinner under the
shelter of the rock. We were wet and shivering, but at least
our bellies were full of hot food. After making a half-ass
attempt at bear-proofing our food, we climbed into our
tents to dry off and warm up. That was around
6pm. With the wet clothes off and
tucked into our
mummy bags, it didn't take long to warm up and be comfortable
again. Within an hour the rain
stopped pelting our tents.
About that time the wind
started to pick up. You could hear it howling in the distance way up
high on the mountain. Jeff and I had a lantern
burning in the
tent and quietly layed there a while enjoying the serenity of
our tent in the woods. Both of us drifted off to sleep.
Throughout the
night we each were awake at different points for
different reasons. At one point he heard the snow coming down
lightly hitting the tarp of the
tent. When I was awake, I
could hear the wind still howling. Every once in a while a gust
would rip down the mountainside like a freight train.
You could
here it start from the top and make it's way down overtop of us and
keep going down the valley. I remember thinking how
cool it
was that it didn't seem to effect us. The trees
wouldn't sway any harder when those gusts came through nor would the
tent move. But some
gusts would. Some gusts would
make the trees sway. Sometimes the tent would shake, but not
anywhere near as much as I'd hear the
gusts that rolled
over top of us. I fell asleep
again.
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At 3am I heard the crack. I thought I heard
someone yell, but no one else remembers yelling. I had no idea
where the crack came from or
where whatever it was that cracked
was going, but I immediately curled into a fetal position with my
arms and hands over my head. Maybe
it's crash instinct from all
my mt. biking. Maybe I expected it to happen, but there
was no hesitation in taking the crash position. And crash
it did
on top of us. Jeff wasn't as fast and the bough bumped
his head on the way down. Jay and Chris were trapped under branches
until
Chris crawled out and started breaking branches away so
Jay could move in what was left of their tent. While Chris ran
around breaking
branches, Jay got out. I checked Jeff's
head then we discussed what to do. Out of no where Chris
starts hooting and hollaring. Without
skipping a
beat Jay joins in. Jeff and I were still in the tent. We
couldn't see what was going on. This kind of yelling is usually
associated with
trying to scare bears away from your campsite.
Crap! A tree falls on us and now a bear is attacking? Chris had been
kind of frantic to this
point (we had to tell him to put on
more clothes and warm up before he broke away anymore
branches), so I really wasn't sure what was
happening.
Finally Jeff yells out and asks what the hell is going on?
Chris says he thinks he saw something move near our packs by
the
rock, but admits it may have been a shadow from his headlamp
and the branches he was throwing around. Jeff and I get back to
discussing
what we're going to do. Honestly my initial
thought was we'd get an earlier start then we planned for
a summit attempt. Luckily Jeff was a little
more level
headed and said no. We'd quit the trip and head to his parents house
in Maine for the rest of the weekend. I agreed. That was
definitely a better plan. We'd get warm, clean up, eat, pack up,
and hike out safely. One at a time we got dressed and crawled
out to
assess. It was insane. A forty to fifty foot healthy
pine, laden with heavy wet snow had cracked three or four
feet above the ground and fell
directly between our two
tents. Standing in front and between our tents was another pine.
When the tree fell, the standing tree raked all the
branches off the one side leaving three to four inch spikey
stubs that pierced the edge of our tent in three places above where
our heads were.
laying. The branches on the other side of the
tree fell across and over Jay and Chris's tent trapping them
beneath. It ripped a whole in their
tarp and mangled their
poles. It bent one of our poles and pierced our tent so badly we had
to cut it out from under the tree. We tried lifting
the tree,
but it wouldn't budge. In the dark with the snow falling, we
made some hot chocolate and coffee, packed up our stuff and
headed
back to the car. It was 5am when we hit the trail
with our headlamps burning the way. It took us two hours to get
ourselves together and get
out of our campsite. Oh. There was no bear or
animal at our packs. Jeff and I check for tracks, but found nothing.
Like any
good LOTR adventure, ours was hardly over. Our first obstacle
was crossing a raging creek with slick almost icy rocks to jump
from.
In the dark with forty pound packs on our backs, this
wasn't easy. We comtemplated throwing on our crampons for more
traction, but I
decided just to go and try it anyway. I got
across fine, but put a foot in when I went back to help
Jeff. Luckily my gators kept my foot dry and
everyone else made it ok.
Maybe it was
the fact we woke with a tree falling on us, but every gust that now
blew through the woods made us nervous. The wind would
blow and we'd all stop and look around
for cracking or falling trees.
On a particularly precarious
downhill it finally happened. Jeff and I were a little over halfway
down. Chris was about a third of the way and Jay
had just
started when the wind blew and a tree at the top next to Jay split
down the center. Jay saw the snow crack and pop off the tree
around the split while Chris could see Jay's headlamp through
the split. They both started yelling. Jeff and I were too far down
to realize
exactly what was going on. I heard the crack,
but thought it was in front of us. Turning back up the hill I saw
the tree Jay was pointing at and
realized it would fall straight
down the hill on top of us. We ran, stumbled and fell down the hill.
Jay was left at the top. When the wind died
down a bit we told
him to run down and get out of there.
Now we
were totally freaked. Every gust had us stopping, ducking and
running whether trees were falling or not. On one such gust, Chris
was
leading and stopped. As he turned to look up and around at
the trees one fell not two feet in front of him across the trail. It
hadn't even made
the tell-tale crack. It simply fell.
If he hadn't stopped... We picked up the pace and hauled
it out of there. Back at the car, we drove into
Gorham, Nh and
stopped at the Dunkin Donuts. We sat for an hour
drinking coffee and eating breakfast. It was 8am. We'd
been up for five
hours. Mostly we just sat. Everytime I started
to think of what could of happened, I had to stop. Everytime I
thought about how lucky we were
I couldn't comprehend
it.
We got back in the car and drove the hour and a
half to Jeff's parents house in Limington Maine. It was a beautiful
day. At their house we
drank some beers, aired out our gear and
took some naps on the lawn. After a few gusts through the trees I
decided I'd had enough with
napping.
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