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Re: Weather in the Whites
At 01:23 PM 3/25/96 -0600, you wrote:
>Just read AT2000's post about the Whites, and I have to say, it is
>good advice for a weekender, but utterly irrelevant to the AT
>thruhiker. Thruhikers don't have the luxury of waiting out bad
>weather. Unless the snow is hip deep, or wind steady at 60 mph, most
>thruhikers will continue to hike, good weather, bad weather. If one
>day in three is wet, how long will a thruhike last if you wait out
>the rainy days? Consider the distance from Mitzpah to Madison - 12
>miles. all above treeline. Lake of the Clouds Hut is generally full,
> and they are not very nice about letting
>thruhikers stay when the cellar is filled. So what do you do when
>the weather is bad? Keep hiking! You can start your hike with
>sunshine and have cold winds and rain and fog in a remarkably short
>time. People have died of hypothermia in July in the Whites. You
>can't fool with it. Since most thruhikers can't afford to wait until
>the weather clears, that means they must be prepared for sudden
>changes of temperature and conditions. Rain gear, wool hats and
>gloves, polartech jackets at the least. I came very close to
>hypothermia on Saddleback Mountain in Maine, in August. Be
>prepared!! Ginny "Spririt Walker" Frost
>
>The advice was not for a thru hiker
AT2000