[~ 16 MINUTE READ]
*WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF FROSTBITE (and ugly toes), READ WITH CAUTION*
I've hiked Mount Washington 3 times in the dead of winter...I've reached the summit 2 out of those 3 times. This is the story about the time I didn't...
How I got frostbite
So here's the thing...I like hiking alone. I know it can be kind of taboo in the hiking community, especially in hazardous conditions, but it's always been one of my favorite things to do. In fact, I love hiking in part because I can do it alone. I don't have to find a belayer, a teammate, or someone to drop me up river. It can be a totally solo adventure. As I've traveled I've found this to be an especially important aspect of enjoying the outdoors.
After doing it enough I kind of relied on hiking as a time for me to be alone and just disconnect for a while. No talking, no phones, no computers, and no worries. I could be totally alone with just myself, which is pretty rare at this point in my life.
So when I wanted to hike Mount Washington alone, I didn't think anything of it, even though everyone I talked to said "You shouldn't do that" , "That's too dangerous" or "You're nuts, dude!" . I would just tell them, I go hiking by myself all the time, I've been hiking all over the world, I know what I'm doing. So, I hiked Mount Washington by myself in the warmer months about 3 times. Then I wanted to hike it in the winter.
Even I knew that this was a little bit crazy, since Mount Washington is known for having maybe the worst weather in the world. But I had hiked bigger, more technical mountains before, so it wasn't a huge deal. I stuck to the script; I hiked the same route several times in the summer to make sure I was familiar with the trail. I got all the right gear. I spoke to people who had done it before. I made sure to tell several people exactly where I was going and my estimated time of arrival and departure. And then I climbed that mountain. Twice.
The first trip up, I went in January. It was pretty much what I expected; intense, but nothing too scary.
What was a little scary was finding a lost hiker on my way up. He had lost his way above the treeline because A) Visibility was very poor B) You have to wear crampons at this point, which means you can't really back track by following your footprints C) He was a fairly inexperienced hiker D) He had never hiked the mountain before (yeah...I know).
He was hiking way off trail (I only saw him because he was wearing a bright red puffy), I hiked towards him, yelling, as he was descending below the treeline. Finally, he heard me and was able to make his way over. We talked for a few minutes, I showed him the trail where it reached the treeline and he made his way back down.
Everything worked out fine but the realization that this guy could have been in serious, SERIOUS trouble was not lost on me. If I was a little off my game I could end up as a semi-permanent statue on the side of that mountain.
The next year I went up with my brother, who is also an experienced hiker, but had never been around
these kind of conditions. We ended up picking a beautiful day and made it up and back without any issues; well, aside from feeling like ours lungs were going to explode, our legs were going to fall off, and our faces were going to freeze...you know, the normal stuff.
The third year (that is, about 3 months ago) I wanted to go up by myself again. With work, family, travel, and more work, my schedule was insane; I actually didn't think I was going to find one weekend free to make the hike. It just so happened I was able to find one weekend, which turned out to be the coldest days of the winter. The high was 0°F , the low was -26°F and the wind peaked at 94 MPH, so yeah... it was a freakishly cold day. But again, I knew that ahead of time, and I was prepared.
I set out to the mountain at about 4 am... I was going to try to get an image of Mount Washington at sunrise. I made it to the treeline quickly, without issue, and in time to set up for an epic photo! But, as always, everything at that elevation was socked in. I couldn't see more than 30 ft in front of me. So, at about 4,500 ft, I waited for the clouds to blow over. And waited. And waited...
Now, at this point, I was cold...but not painfully cold. I felt like I could've stayed up there as long I needed. I had a large boulder breaking the wind for me so I wasn't totally exposed and I had layers of wool and down that were keeping me pretty warm...not to mention I had just been working my ass off, so my body temp was way up!
When I had some level of visibility I would hike as far as I could then more clouds would move in and I would have to wait again. This process continued for about an hour before I realized I was pushing it too far. I was on the verge of getting lost on one of the coldest days of the year, and as far as I knew, I was the only one on the mountain. So, I made the decision to turn around and go home. That's when it all began to unravel!
The aftermath
I made it down, taking pictures and enjoying the hike, got in my old truck, and started driving home. I had taken off my boots and was driving in my socks with the heater on full blast. At first I noticed the sensation of my feet regaining full circulation; like when a limb falls asleep and you can feel the blood coming back to it...it tingles a little bit or feels like a light burning sensation. I was used to that, so I didn't think twice when it started. About 30 minutes into my drive I realized my feet still felt that way except it was less tingling and more burning. I also started to notice that the gas and break pedals felt a little funny on my foot and quickly realized that it was because the tips of my toes were numb.
I let out a loooooong internal scream and then pulled over to check the damage. When I took my socks off, it was my worst nightmare. The tips of my toes were milky blue and some sections were a dark blue'ish black. Needless to say, I was scared to death. I started driving again, called my wife and asked her to look up what to do if you have frostbite. When she finally stopped yelling at me for being an idiot and hiking Mount Washington even though she told me I should wait, she told me that I basically needed to go to the ER as soon as possible.
About an hour later I got to my house, took a quick shower, and had my wife take me to the hospital. Then, lucky me, I waited for 3 hours in the waiting room! When they finally saw me they wrapped my feet in dry gauze and said "We don't really know if it's frostbite, and even if it is, there is nothing we can do for you here" and they sent me packin'! These are how the toes looked in the ER.
The worst is on the middle toe of the left foot, and the first (big toe) and second toe on the right foot. The blue and dark red is the worst, then there is the pale yellow, then the red and white sections. You can see on the left middle toe that a blister had already formed and popped. At this point I could only feel my smallest toes and the lower third of the other ones. You can also kind of see how swollen my feet and toes were.
So at this point I was sure that I was going to lose some of my toes. I mean, they were NUMB!! Like, I couldn't feel anything on the majority of my toes.
After my follow up appointment the consensus from a few doc's was "Either your toes are going to turn black and die, in which case we will amputate them; or your toes are going to shed all the dead skin and new skin will be underneath."
Luckily, they didn't turn black! All the skin on my toes peeled and fell off and I had zombie toes for a while...(GRAPHIC PHOTOS ON THE WAY)
I couldn't walk for over 2 weeks. Yeah...2 weeks on the couch. At first, that might sound like a nice vacation...it wasn't. I was losing my mind.
To date, I've lost 6 toenails (one just last week!), all of the skin fell off my toes and has been replaced, and I still don't have feeling in 4 toes. I'm hopeful the feeling will gradually come back, but there is no guarantee.
What caused the frostbite?
Ok, this is the part where I say, "I'm not a doctor, take all of this with a grain of salt because I'm totally guessing! I have absolutely no medical experience, do not use this as medical advice!" There.
So, what led to me getting frostbite on my toes? Ok, you might be tempted to scream "THE COLD, YOU IDIOT!!!" but before you do, hear me out. Yes, obviously the cold did most of the frost-"biting" but I also think a BIG factor was the fact that my boots were too tight! I was wearing my old Danner Crag Rat boots, a full leather backpacking boot that I love, but they are about a half size too small for me. I would work around this by stretching them a bit every year, or when they would feel tight, and this seemed to work for the most part. But this trip, I hadn't stretched them, I was wearing thick socks, AND I was wearing crampons for most of the hike.
When I tightened my boots down I could feel that they were too tight, but I just figured there was nothing I could do about it now and it wasn't going to do any harm, they might just be a little uncomfortable. I think that the combination of tight boots and the frigid cold contributed to poor circulation and, ultimately, frost bite.
What I learned
After I got frostbite I heard the usual "Told you so" stuff, how I was stupid for hiking on such a cold day, and of course the "Hiking alone" argument. But the reality is, this failed trip to the summit was no different than the successful ones.
Yes, it was a little colder, but I was prepared, and even when I was standing above the treeline I never felt too cold...including my feet. I listened to my body, I respected the mountain, and in the end I made the decision to turn back not because of some traumatic accident or scary conditions, I turned back because I realized I might be putting myself in bad situation when I really didn't need to. It was a good day on the mountain with no part of me feeling like I pushed it too far.
So, this is what I really learned from my frostbite experience:
1. When you are in extreme conditions, you can't necessarily rely on your body to communicate with you.
The scariest thing to me about this whole experience was that I never thought my feet were cold. I always thought if I was getting frostbite I would first feel like my extremity is too cold, then they gradually begin to hurt, then go numb...that was definitely not the case for me. I put on my wool socks and full leather boots and the feeling in my feet never really changed from my truck to the top of the mountain.
After talking with my doctors and reading about mountaineers in more extreme conditions, I realized it's important to use processes to make sure your body is safe and healthy. For instance, just sitting down and taking off your boots to check your feet. That is a process that mountaineers use to make sure they don't have frostbite. Periodically taking your gloves off to check your fingertips. Doing simple math equations in your head to make sure you are still cognizant.
Normally we rely on indicators from our body to communicate with us. All of our senses, including pain, can cue us in when something is wrong. When you fall and feel pain in your knee, that's your body communicating that something is wrong, so you check your knee for damage. But what happens when your body isn't communicating properly because it is too cold, too hot, or too tired? Well that's why we need processes.
2. Live to fight another day
As the old saying goes, sometimes it's better to retreat and survive than to push on and perish. Now obviously that goes without saying when your actually talking about your life...no hike is worth dying for (in my opinion). It's also important when you're talking about injury. I think back to that day a lot and realize how lucky I am that I chose to turn back when I did. If I had stayed on that mountain another hour, I may have lost all of my toes. No more flip flops for Gio.
3. Hiking alone is still OK
I got a lot of flack from family and friends (and total strangers) about how stupid it was for me to hike alone. But the reality is that having someone else with me would not have changed a thing. In fact, in this case, it may have made things worse, since you tend to be overly confident when you have another person there to push you. Imagine if I had been with someone saying "We can make it, let's just wait it out one more time"...I'd be a lot worse off today.
I know that hiking alone is a risk, but it's a risk I'm willing to take when I plan ahead and take the necessary precautions.
4. When you need it the most, the right gear is priceless
This might be an obvious statement seeing as I write an outdoor gear blog, but this experience really solidified my belief that it's critical to have the right gear at the right time. I was wearing my Danner Crag Rat boots, which are great, but... A) They are not insulated winter boots B) They were small and I bought them that way because they were on sale.
At that time I didn't have a nice pair of winter hikers, so I decided to just wear my normal backpacking boots instead of buying another pair of boots. That decision almost cost me my toes.
It's easy to justify NOT spending money on things that you think will be unnecessary...insulated boots, an extra warm layer, a rugged backpack, a quality radio, a nice headlamp, etc. But when that unnecessary item becomes necessary, you will be willing to pay anything for it.
If you are putting yourself in risky situations, there is almost always going to be gear that will mitigate some of that risk or assist you when something goes wrong. BUY THAT GEAR, or stop putting yourself in that risky situation. If you're skiing back country-buy an airbag, if you're mountain biking-buy that nice helmet, if you're hiking in the winter-buy some winter boots (duh, Gio!!).
Conclusions
I know it sounds crazy, but I really am grateful for this experience. In the end, I learned some valuable lessons and I still have all my toes! I'm looking forward to the weather warming up so I don't have to worry so much about checking my extremities, but next winter, I'm bagging that peak!
If there is only one thing you learn from this story, let it be that you cannot put a price on your health.
I think it's important that we continually challenge ourselves to help us as hikers and humans. But, if you are going to put yourself in risky situations make sure you are prepared...mentally and physically.
Guys, gals...what do you think? On a scale of " Vomit Inducing" - "Not the ugliest things I've ever seen", how beautiful are my toes? LOL just kidding...please don't answer that.
But for reals though, what did you think of the article?
--Have you had an experience with frostbite or winter hiking gone bad?
--What's your take on solo hiking?
--Do you have a piece of gear that is extremely important to you?
Leave a comment below so we can all benefit from your experience!!
As always, thank you very much for taking the time to read...I know this was a long one!