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The three were rushed to Littleton Regional Hospital for treatment of hypothermia and exposure, primarily first- and second-degree frostbite. Chesson's core temperature had slipped to 95 degrees. Speicher suffered exhaustion and minor frostbite to his fingertips and toes, but was otherwise in good shape. Chase says he was fine "except for my feet."

Chase remembers chuckling as the nurses scrambled to find a bin big enough to accommodate his size 15 feet. The laughing ceased abruptly when his feet were submerged in the warm water, and the circulation began to return. "It hurt like hell—I can't even describe the pain," he says. "But, in a way, it was reassuring, knowing it was going to help."

Dr. Richard Monroe also reassured Chase. The recovery would be painful, but he wouldn't lose any extremities. By the next evening, Chase's fiancee, Ellie Osborn, and his parents, Rose and Clint Chase Sr., had arrived. Rose Chase says she wasn't prepared for the outpouring of support from the New Hampshire climbing community. "I was very grateful for that," she says. "It was the type of support we couldn't give him, because we had never been through that."

As with many traumatic experiences, the physical scars heal before the emotional ones. Chase spent eight days and seven nights in the hospital. In many ways, though, the real recovery began once he was discharged. "It really affected me a lot," he says. "It was my first true rescue experience; it was a successful experience, but not an ideal rescue experience. It was as close to death as I'd like to come."

To date, Speicher has never contacted Chase or Chesson, never offered a word of thanks. They don't expect him to. In several published reports, Speicher intimated that he didn't need any help and that the rescue team may have put him in further jeopardy. Speicher's behavior following the rescue, says Chase, has been the most baffling aspect of the ordeal.

"Rescue work can be a thankless job, completely thankless," Chase says. "I thought there was a bond created that night, but I guess not. It was a hard lesson. I guess he was just in denial. It's hard to understand—maybe he was embarrassed. I've talked to other guides, and they say it's not uncommon."

Chesson is less diplomatic. "Left to his own devices, (Speicher) would have been dead," he says. "Look at the decision-making process that got him in this place to begin with. This was one of the worst storms of the season. Those decisions almost killed him, and almost killed us. We did the best we could with what we had."

Chase echoes similar sentiments. "Hindsight is a beautiful thing. I keep asking myself 'Could we have prevented getting cold, getting wet, and still got out?' There are so many things that can happen up there that make good decisions look like poor decisions. There's always lots of chance involved. Sometimes you have to make the best decision you can, and then follow it through."

Asked if they would join another rescue mission, both young men say they'd go without hesitation. "You get a strong sense of community up there," says Chase. "You have to show commitment to maintaining that community. The idea is that we're all in this together. And if I were out there, I'd want someone to come get me." ~

Brion O'Connor, a freelance writer and avid outdoorsman, earned a degree in environmental conservation at the University of New Hampshire.

A Deadly Attraction

Common sense dictates that there are a handful of people and places you just don't want to cross, especially if the mood is foreboding—the neighborhood bully, the Caribbean during hurricane season and New Hampshire's Mt. Washington.

The massive expanse of the 6,288-foot mountain, with sharp, craggy ravines melting away from its broad summit, is deceptively inviting. The peak is well-traveled—thousands visit annually, by car, by rail and by foot. In mild weather, from mid-May to early October, the summit buzzes with activity.

The Mt. Washington Observatory in the dead of winter.

Still, there is a sinister side to this behemoth. A four-mile hike from trailhead to summit covers a 4,000-foot elevation gain over rocky and often treacherous terrain. The average annual temperature at the summit is five degrees below freezing. This crown jewel of the Presidential Range is also smack-dab in the middle of several major storm patterns. Quick-strike squalls are common year-round, but can be particularly devastating in the colder months. Gusts alone (the highest surface wind speed ever recorded—231 miles per hour—was charted on the summit on April 12, 1934) can drive the wind chill to deadly depths in a heartbeat. And there is no public shelter above treeline between Columbus Day and Memorial Day.

It has been called the "Killer Mountain." It is as indiscriminate as it is ruthless. Daughters, sons, mothers and fathers—the prepared and the uninitiated alike—have all perished on the unpredictable slopes of Mt. Washington, roughly 124 in all since Darby Field became the first white man to record his ascent of the peak in 1642.

Victims have been felled by a stunning variety of catastrophes—ice and rock slides, avalanches, train wrecks, falls, heart attacks, exhaustion, exposure, plane crashes. Englishman Frederick Strickland, 29, started the macabre procession during an early fall storm in 1849. Shortly afterwards, the mountain claimed its first female victim, 23-year-old Lizzie R. Bourne of Kennebunk, Maine, in September 1855.

In winter, rime ice can transform posted trail signs into ghostly crosses that serve as figurative warnings to those who choose to test their mettle against the mountain's. Other trail markers, such as cairns and blazes, are easily obscured by snow and ice. Though hikers are admonished to stay on the trails at all times, especially above treeline, the routes can be increasingly hard to follow when buried under snowdrifts or hidden by dense fog.

The AMC levels a final and stern warning to hikers that is alarming in its brevity: "Turn back if the weather deteriorates—it will not improve!"

Unfortunately, too many have failed to heed those few choice words.

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