Tuckerman Ravine

Like, a half-mile, you're like, "This guy's not doing well.

We can turn around, and it'll be super easy to catch a ride back." Like, but they're like, "Ah, let's go down the good old Tuckerman R- Tuckerman Ravine, the most difficult trail on the East Coast, and, you know, let's, yeah, check it out." Like, what's, what's going through your head? Like, do you...

Not going down the 4,000, someone'll be like, "Ha, you..." Oh, they're gonna be like, "Hey, man, you freaking saved this guy's life, and you avoided a search and rescue.

We'll kind of praise you.

It's a mountain I've hiked many times over the years.

And while down here near the base at Tuckerman's Ravine, the weather's pleasant, I know from experience it can be a whole other climate when you get near the top.

I know the second highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth was 231 miles per hour at the top of Mount Washington.

Now that happened April 12th, 1934.

14 years later, the hut is expanded into a proper lodge.

And from here, we're going to jump ahead 80 years.

It's now April of 1994 here at Tuckerman's Ravine on Mount Washington.

An AMC crew member named George is going to hike his way up the lakes of the Clouds Hut to check out any damage from the previous winter and report on the state of the hut.

here is the scintillant world of the wildcat river valley

once more still bathed in sunshine though the shadows of the range to westward creep rapidly toward its center i have seen the heart of its beginnings at the moment when the toiling trolls were at their work i had seen the weirder spirits cast their mantle over the place and far down the notch i could hear the little river calling me to come down to it again as i scrambled off this giant's causeway to the friendly leading of the path and went on down through the region of great gray toads to the slope of a thousand porcupines and on to where the footpath way enters the road the smile of sunshine had gone from the face of the valley and the night shadows of wildcat and its spurs were drawn across it but only for a little was it somber with the darkness came a million scintillations of firefly lights in all its grasses and out of the clear blue of the sky above twinkled back the answering stars chapter six chapter seven of white mountain trails up tuckerman's ravine day and night along the short trail to mount washington summit arch at the head of tuckerman's ravine holds winter in its heart all summer long in the sweltering heat of the early july weather it is an unborn glacier a solid mass of compacted snow and ice two hundred feet in vertical diameter and spreading fan fashion across the whole head of the ravine out from under it rumbles a stream of ice water and it still makes danger for the mountain climber on the upper part of the path which climbs the head wall of the ravine and goes on up to the summit of mount washington all winter long the north wind sweeps the snow over the round ridge between the summit cone and boot spur and drifts it down the perpendicular face of rock which stands above the beginning of the ravine there are summers when the heat of the sun beating directly upon this glacial mass melts

it away there are others when it lingers till the snows of autumn come to build upon it again he who would do much mountain climbing in

a comparatively short distance will do well to go up mount washington by the tuckerman ravine a good motor road leads from jackson to gorham and on and the trail leaves this nine miles above jackson a m c signs and the feet of thousands of mountain lovers have made the path's progress plain but for a further sign the wilderness sends the swish of cutler river flashing over its boulders to the ear all the way up to the snow arch and it serves free ice water for the refreshment of travelers only in rare spots does this tiny torrent find time to make placid pools all the rest of the way it leaps boulders shelters trout in clear bubbling depths and makes its longest mattest plunges at the cliffs down which foam the crystal cascades here at the end of your first half-mile of ascent you may lie in the shadow of maple and white birch on the brink of a narrow gulf see the white joy of the river as it makes its swiftest plunge toward the sea and listen to the myriad voices in which it tells the lore of the lonely ravine which the waters have traversed from the very summit of the headwall no water comes down the crystal cascade that is not beaten into a foam as white as the quartz vein in which it has its very beginnings high up the cone of the summit it is as if this quartz were here turned to liquid life which spurts in a million joyous arches from the black rock which it touches and leaves more nimbly than the feet of fleeing mountain sheep there are wonderfully beautiful pink flushes in this white quartz and you may see them as you go up the path to the summit above the alpine gardens of the plateau but you do not have to climb that far to see them the same colors of dawn are in the cascade when the sun filters through the leaves and touches those curves of beauty in which the river laughs down to its wedding with the ellis in the heart of pink of notch in the heart of the snow arch is winter on its steadily receding southern margin all through july is a continual dawn of spring as the snow recedes the alders emerge bare and leafless a rod down stream they are tinged green with the beginnings of crinkly leaves and have hung out their long staminate tassels of bloom another rod and they are in full leafage and the staminate tassels have given place to the brown seed cones these

mountain alders have a singularly crimped rich green leaf and they so love the snow-water torrents of tuckerman's ravine that they stand in them where they plunge in steepest

gullies down the cliffs bearing their tremendous buffeting with steadfast forgiveness sometimes the freshets skin them alive and leave them rooted with their white bones yearning down stream as if to follow the water that killed them the torrents hurl rocks down and crush them and always the downpour of water and mountain-side has bent them till in the steepest places they grow downward their tips only struggling to bend toward the sky yet still in july they put out their bright green corrugated leaves array themselves in the beauty of golden tassels flecked with dark brown and scatter pollen gold on the waters that now prattle so lovingly by in places

the river-side banks are white with stars of houstonia and the lilac alpine violets nod from

though it still reflects the sapphire blue of the clear sky above the lake is indeed a hermit dwelling always apart in its hollow among the spiring spruces a tiny level of water strangely beautiful for its placidity amid all the turmoil and grandeur about it from its boggy margin the morning of the day that i reached it a big buck had drank and left his hoof-prints plain in the mud among the short grasses i waited long at evening for him to come back but the only signs of life about the margins were the voices of three green frogs that cried tuggugg to one another by turns one living long here might well measure the flight of time on a clear afternoon and evening by the changes of colour in the lake it is but a shallow pool but you look through the mud of its bottom and see far below by the inverted spires of the marginal trees into infinite depths of a blue that is that of the sky but clarified and intensified by the clear waters from which it shines till it is to the eye as perfect and inspiring as a clear musical note that leaps out of silence to the longing ear as the day passes this color in the lake deepens and changes in rhythmical cadences till twilight brings a deep green through which you see the inverted ravine below you more clearly than above the one clear note has swelled into a symphony of color through which floats one entrancing tone as sometimes lifts a clear soprano voice out of the fine harmony of the chorus the pink of sunset fleece of clouds a mile above the headwall of the ravine as the day fades so does this high clear tone and the advancing night deepens the green to a black that is silence a silence that is velvety in body but scintillant with the glint of stars

... before they had a marker? And we've talked about this before, if you know somebody died there, you automatically have your own kind of emotional experience over that.

I mean, I remember hiking Mount Washington, the tallest peak in the White Mountains there in New Hampshire, and in the wintertime it's very dangerous, but in the summer, I was 10 years old and I could hike up one particular side of the mountain, and there's a famous trail called Tuckerman Ravine, and there's lots of little markers that show you where somebody died.

And-

Oh