Mt. Moosilauke (1923) - Great Bear Rescue
". . . An icy chill struck in up toward tree line, stiffening hands even through heavy mittens. The speed of their pursuit had heated both men so that the first blasts as they cleared the stunted spruces cased them in frozen clothing and numbed their faces. On the open plateau along which the trail runs for a mile to the summit, a blizzard was blowing.
Miller could just make out the half-drifted holes where the hikers had plunged through four feet of snow. And, at the turn where the trail joins the carriage road, a pair of rubber boots stuck in the snow! Nolen stopped to adjust snowshoes. The straps were frozen. To make headway against the gale the men groped over rocks supporting themselves with ski poles. Both were near exhaustion, but even with the road drifted full they knew the direction of the Summit House.
And still those wandering blots in the snow led on. They were some five hundred yards from the house, invisible in the storm darkness, when they ran full into the couple headed down the mountain - into the barrens of the west slopes. Both in stocking feet, the woman delirious, they were heading for lower ground to lie down in the snow, to - lie - down. . . ."
From "Great Bear Rescue" by Evan A. Woodward, pp. 537-543, The Moosilaukee Reader (Vol.2). ©1999.
