First Snow Part II

Having fallen in love with the mountains, I finally moved to New Hampshire's Mount Washington Valley in the mid eighties. The nice thing about living in the Valley was, you got to ski cheap and mid week without the crowds. So all our days off would be skiing, snowshoeing, back country skiing, ice climbing and even night skiing.  By the late eighties the new sport of snow boarding was just starting to make the scene. My good friend Dave Goodwin took to boarding immediately. Dave was good at anything he did, he was an expert sky diver, expert kayaker, great skier, he climbed, he rode dirt bikes, hunted, fished, so he was a natural at boarding.  He went on to be a snowboard and telemark ski instructor. Dave passed on a few years ago from cancer, he is missed.



DeeDee and I took to snow boarding a few years later and haven't been on skis since. I started guiding about that time, so as my commitment to the restaurant decreased, my time in the outdoors increased. Eventually I was a full time climbing guide, spending sometimes 7 days a week out bringing folks up Mt Washington or teaching them to ice climb. As a member of the Mountain Rescue Service, we'd sometimes spend all night rescuing an injured climber or searching for lost hikers in quite often miserable conditions. After several rescues where we had to snowshoe miles up steep terrain is awful conditions, I decided I hated snowshoeing! Rescues were tough, but when the result was good, it was worth it. Unfortunately, all the rescues did not always end well. Finding and recovering a body is a somber event that stays with you forever. Most rescues and searches were a result of poor judgement, lack of experience or just stubbornness. Almost all could have been prevented.  The White Mountains in winter are harsh. On Mt Washington alone there have been over 150 fatalities.


Why do so many die on a 6000 foot mountain, that in other areas would be just a hill?  It's just a few hours of driving for millions of people, it can have the worst weather on the planet, and people just don't want to head warnings. Outside magazine did an article about why so many die on Mt Wahington, good reading  if you're interested HERE...


In the meantime, DeeDee and I had bought a house in Fryeburg, Maine, a short distance from the Valley. The house was at the end of a dirt road, so we had a driveway about a quarter mile long. That first winter we shovelled the entire thing by hand. Luckily our nearest neighbor had a tractor and plowed us out enough for me to realize, I needed a plow. My first plow was a 1950's Ford Tractor. Tractors can move snow, but by no means do they move it fast or very efficiently. And without a cab, not very much fun. After a few years with a tractor, I finally smartened up and bought an old Chevy plow  truck. Much better, but there's still a learning curve to plowing snow, and as with most things in my life, I learned the hard way...

to be continued