A Rescue Report From Mount Washington Pulls No Punches

I read a lot of search and rescue reports.

These brief accounts, often published on Facebook or on government agency websites, are windows into dramatic lifesaving missions that sometimes involve helicopters and dozens of personnel. No, the writing isn’t exactly Shakespeare, and the photos are often grainy and of poor compositional quality. But I still find these statements to be enthralling and sometimes hilarious pieces of literature. Read enough of them—as I have—and you can often glean the scathing attitude that the author has toward the person at the heart of the rescue.

Such is the case with a recent SAR report issued by that’s making national headlines. On Monday, February 20, the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game published its account of a successful life-saving mission that occurred amid bone-chilling conditions on Mount Washington on Saturday, February 17. A 22-year-old hiker named Cole Matthes called 911 saying he’d fallen and injured himself while traversing Ammonoosuc Ravine, a rugged section of the 6,200-foot peak. Since Matthes was located in a tricky area, rescuers asked the owners of the Mount Washington Cog Railway to fire up the historic steam engine and haul them uphill to his approximate location. Eventually a SAR team found him hunkered down in an emergency shelter.

There, they discovered that Matthes was suffering from hypothermia, the report said. Saturday was a particularly inhospitable day on Mount Washington: winds surpassed 90 miles per hour, and the temperature plunged to -52 degrees Fahrenheit. Most everyone hiking the peak that day turned back at lower elevations. Whoever wrote the SAR report included these details amid the fairly anodyne description of the rescue, which took 11 hours to complete. Then, the author used his or her prickliest tone to utterly savage Matthes in two paragraphs that seemed to be copy-pasted from a completely different document.

Matthes made numerous poor decisions in regards to the hike that he planned in the White Mountains. He did not have proper gear, equipment, or weather planning, and did not make proper critical decisions in order to keep himself out of harm’s way and moving in the right direction on a dangerous mountain range. Matthes saw other groups turn around and say, “The weather isn’t worth it.” But he decided to keep going.

Matthes called for a rescue after making these poor choices and putting himself in a situation that placed 11 other lives in danger in order to save his. Even though the rescuers complete these heroic tasks with humility and passion there is still never-ending concern as to why inexperienced solo hikers continue to push on.

As a frequent writer of internet hot takes, I gave the Jeremiah Johnson nod of approval after reading this section.

I can relate to Matthes, of course. I am a former 22 year old dude, and in my youth I absolutely acted carelessly in my outdoor pursuits, yet was lucky enough to avoid Internet notoriety. I sincerely hope that he recovers from his hypothermia and terrifying ordeal, and goes on to enjoy a long and fruitful career of future outdoor adventures.

But I do believe that the digital ribbing is justified here. Matthes himself admitted to having made poor decisions in an email interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday. He said he had microspikes for the hike, but admitted that he was not prepared for the blowing winds and deep freeze. “I am extremely grateful to all 11 of the men who saved my life Saturday and am also extremely sorry that they had to risk their lives to save me,” Matthes said “I certainly made poor decisions and was underprepared for this hike.”

As of this afternoon, the story had been picked up by regional and national news outlets, most notably the Associated Press and USA Today, and all of the stories quote the aforementioned paragraphs. I phoned up Lieutenant James Kneeland of New Hampshire’s Fish and Game to learn more about the report’s origin. Kneeland, who did not participate in the rescue effort, did not divulge the author of the takedown. He said that sharing information like this is simply part of the agency’s efforts to educate the public about the mountain’s numerous dangers.

“We sometimes gripe about having to write the releases but the overall mission is to get the message out to as many people as possible,” Kneeland said. “On most of them we try to have an educational component. Like hey, it’s winter conditions, you’re at elevation, so you need traction devices on your feet.”

Kneeland said that his agency regularly posts bulletins about extreme weather on Mount Washington, and in the past it has even erected placards on the highway and in parking lots telling hikers to be mindful of dangerous conditions. He credited the state’s Hike Safe card with educating visitors to the dangers posed by hiking in the White Mountains. When I asked Kneeland if the agency had ever considered closing Mount Washington’s trails during extreme weather, he laughed.

“In my 30-odd years we’ve never discussed a closure,” he said. “With our state motto Live Free or Die, I’m not sure the discussion would last longer than a minute or two before it would be shot down.”

Point taken.

Outside has covered Mount Washington’s deadly history at length, and in 2016 columnist Wes Siler ascended the peak with a local guide and SAR volunteer to learn more about the peak’s dangers. There are avalanches, falling rocks, hurricane-force winds, and plummeting temperatures that can transform the entire peak into an ice skating rink. Perhaps the deadliest quality of Mount Washington, of course, is its proximity to Boston and New York City. It’s attracts huge crowds, and every year, inexperienced adventurers get surprised by plummeting temperatures or hurricane-force winds and must be plucked from the peak.

Mount Washington is one of two peaks where this dynamic produces monthly—sometimes daily—online rescue reports; the other is Mount Baldy in Southern California, where even round-the-clock media attention cannot dissuade some hikers from climbing the peak amid deadly conditions. Earlier this month, California was slammed by an atmospheric river that dumped feet of snow in some areas and generated an incredible tonnage of television and internet coverage. Yet hikers still climbed up Mount Baldy amid the storm—with tragic consequences.

A 22-year-old hiker named Lifei Huang died on the mountain, and three others were rescued. Huang’s death generated more national attention, but even that wasn’t enough to educate everyone. On February 14, just two days after Huang’s body was recovered, rescuers had to save six hikers from Mount Baldy after they lost the trail beneath snow and ice.

I read SAR reports from the Mount Baldy missions, and the Californian authors were far less critical than our friend in New Hampshire. One report, issued by the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team, even praised one group of lost hikers for what they did correctly instead of calling out what mistakes they made:

They turned around instead of continuing when conditions deteriorated. They were well equipped with appropriate gear for the conditions. They remained in place overnight, sheltering between two rocks. 

Should SAR teams convince hikers with kindness or shame them into safety? I plan to continue reading reports from Mount Baldy and Mount Washington to see if one rhetorical strategy works best.