– "Why does such a small mountain kill so many people?" That's the question Wes Siler, writing for Outside Online, set out to answer. The mountain is 6,288-foot-tall Mt. Washington, part of New Hampshire's White Mountain range, and since records began in 1849, some 150 people have died there. In February 2015, Kate Matrosova became one of them. Faced with winds of up to 140mph and a temperature of 35-below at the summit, the 32-year-old seasoned outdoorswoman died of exposure before rescuers could reach her. (The Boston Globe wrote about the tragedy in depth.) "God only knows why she didn't turn back," one of those rescuers, Steve Dupuis, tells Siler. The pair hiked Mt. Washington recently, and before they hit the trail, a state cop told them about Canadian Francois Carrier, who hadn't been seen since starting up the mountain earlier this month in flip-flops and a T-shirt. The search for Carrier has been suspended, WMTW reports. The day after it was called off, Siler notes, the temperature on the mountain was 20-below—and that's one part of the answer to the question of why Mt. Washington is so deadly. “Mount Washington sits at the intersection of several major stormtracks,” a weather observer says, which creates extreme, unpredictable weather. On May 16, gusts on the mountain reached 109mph, per NPR. (See video here.) The record, set in 1934, was 231mph. In addition to the weather, Siler writes, Mt. Washington consists of tough terrain, and the danger of avalanches and icefalls looms. Noting that the mountain, treacherous as it is, is easily accessible to inexperienced hikers, Siler comes to the conclusion that, "on Washington, it's lack of preparation, not the mountain, that kills." (The remains of a climber lost 16 years have been found in Tibet.)

Expand this summary.
Authorities have suspended the search for a missing Canadian hiker whose car was found in a visitors center near Mount Washington. 
  
 Pinkham Notch hiker last seen Monday reported missing New Hampshire Fish & Game crews are searching for a man who was last seen Monday at Pinkham Notch. More 
  
 Authorities launched a search Thursday for 47-year-old Francois Carrier of Drummondville, Quebec. State conservation officers and volunteers spent Saturday searching in and around the visitors center for him. Rescue dogs found Carrier's back pack, which authorities believe he lost May 8 while hiking. 
  
 A witness contacted local police Saturday afternoon about a man he believes was Carrier. The witness says he saw him carrying a duffel bag earlier in the week. 
  
 Authorities say Carrier's family has arrived from Quebec and will continue searching for him. He's been added to the national database for missing persons. 
  
 The White Mountain range, including Mount Washington, is a popular hiking destination. ||||| A man stand's in front of Mount Washington. Photo: Mark Cushman 
  
 IndefinitelyWild IndefinitelyWild is a lifestyle column telling the story of adventure travel in the outdoors, the vehicles and gear that get us there, and the people we meet along the way. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 
  
 Before sunrise, one Monday morning in February last year, Kate Matrosova’s husband dropped her off at a trailhead in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. An experienced and well-equipped outdoorswoman, Matrosova planned to complete the Presidential Traverse that day, a hike that would see her eventually summit Mount Washington, after completing several lesser peaks leading to it. She would never be seen alive again. 
  
 Last week, I hiked up the mountain with Steve Dupuis, a local mountain guide and search and rescue volunteer. He was one of the first to respond when Matrosova’s personal locator beacon went off. He and his team would eventually brave wind gusts of 140 mph, and wind chill as low as -100 degrees trying to reach her. During the rescue attempt, the measured temperature of -35 degrees on the mountain’s summit made it the second coldest place on earth, after the South Pole. 
  
 “God only knows why she didn’t turn back,” Dupuis lamented to us. A malfunctioning beacon indicated Maltrosova might have been in three different locations, and the team wasted valuable time by splitting up to search each. By the time they found her at the third, she’d died of exposure. 
  
 The day we hiked, the temperature at Mount Washington’s summit reached 56 degrees. No minus. The sky was blue, and there was no discernible wind. Nevertheless, before we set off, a state policeman gave us the description of a missing hiker. Forty-seven-year-old Francois Carrier of Quebec was last seen embarking on the hike wearing flip flops and a T-shirt. Several hours later, on the way down, we came across search and rescue workers walking a police line through the woods, looking for him. Yesterday, the search was called off. His car still sits in the parking lot at the Pinkham Notch trailhead. Temperatures on the mountain reached -20 degrees on Monday morning. 
  
 If Carrier is pronounced dead, he’ll take the mountain’s total above 150 kills, since records began in 1849. 
  
 Wind blows towards Mount Washington from the northwest. Here, you can see the natural funnel towards its peak created by surrounding mountains. Click to enlarge. Photo: Summit Terragraphics 
  
 Why does such a small mountain kill so many people? One reason is obviously the extreme weather. “Mount Washington sits at the intersection of several major stormtracks,” explains Weather Observer Tom Padham. He's stationed at the mountain’s summit, and gave us a tour of his weather station. The jet stream carries nearly every storm moving west-to-east, and southwest-to-northeast across the country, right over Mount Washington. There, they intersect with weather systems moving south-to-north, up the Atlantic coast. Just a few days after our visit, Padham recorded the following video: 
  
 The mountain also sits at the throat of a natural funnel. Land to the west of the mountains is mostly flat, creating few obstructions. As it blows in out of the northwest, that wind encounters lower mountains fanning out from Washington, channeling air directly to it. The mountain’s own topography also plays a role; its very steep western face compresses the wind caught in that funnel even further. “Air functions as a liquid,” explains Padham, “and as you compress a liquid, it must accelerate.” The highest wind speed ever directly observed by humans was on the summit. There, in 1934, two weather observers stood outside with an anemometer and measured wind speeds of 231 mph. The device stopped working at that speed, even as they felt it gust stronger. 
  
 An easy portion of Lion's Head Trail. Note the loose boulders, the steep drop off, and the cairns. Photo: Alex Kerney 
  
 Due to that extreme weather, trees stop growing in the White Mountains at about 4,400 feet. On Mount Washington’s eastern face, that leaves about a mile and a half of hiking, totally exposed, often in whiteout conditions, before you reach the summit. Regular cairns along the route attempt to steer hikers away from the thousand-foot precipice just a few dozen feet to the south. 
  
 Before that particular trail—Lion’s Head—reaches the treeline, it first climbs through several steep gorges, requiring hikers to scramble up boulders. If snow and ice are present, it can, and does fall as people pass through. A prominent sign at the trailhead warns of this danger, but it still manages to catch people unaware. 
  
 An official incident report from 1997 reads: “On January 5, the body of Alexandre Cassan—one of four members in a party attempting an ill-advised winter ascent of the 6,288-foot peak—was discovered by a U.S. Forest Service snow ranger about one hour after the 1420 avalanche near the Lion Head Trail on Mount Washington’s steep southeast slope. All but one hand of Cassan was buried in the snow.” 
  
 During the summer, when risk of avalanches and icefalls abates, danger to hikers persist. The trails themselves—including the popular Tuckerman Ravine Trail—are strewn with loose, basketball-size rocks. Practically the entire trail is one big tripping hazard, just waiting to twist an ankle, and, if that happens, you won’t be able to walk off the trail under your own power. The terrain only gets more fraught as you turn onto Lion’s Head and attempt to climb the peak’s steep southern approach. And that’s the easiest trail you can find to the summit. 
  
 The building this sign is bolted to is held down by heavy chains that pass over its roof. During the storm that produced these speeds, the weather observers report feeling it lift off its foundation. Photo: Mount Washington Observatory 
  
 Of course, hiking isn’t the only activity that takes place here. Tuckerman’s Ravine, just to the south of the peak, is a popular backcountry skiing bowl. Even in the middle of May, we could see people climbing up its 40-degree, crevasse-filled and rock-strewn face, just to get one last run of the season in. 
  
 Dupuis, our guide, was on hand for another ill-fated rescue attempt there in 2012. A man fell into a crevasse, the weather turned, rescuers were unable to reach him that night, and he froze to death as temperatures fell. It was days before they were able to recover his body. Not everyone enjoys the balmy weather we had last week. 
  
 I asked Padham, the weather observer, how often the mountain sees blue skies. “Maybe 10 days a year,” he responded. 
  
 Even on this clear, calm day, with the forecast calling for it to remain the same overnight, Dupuis insisted we carry rain shells, base layers, down jackets, insulated gloves, a warm hat, and bring extra food and water. To avoid the ankle twisters, he also insisted on over-the-ankle boots. And, even in mid-may, much of the 4.2-mile hike remains covered in ice and snow. Microspikes were another essential he insisted we carry. I didn’t use mine, but there were probably a couple of places I should have. 
  
 Dupuis takes the risks the mountain offers seriously. Hiking much faster than the rest of the group, I found myself in need of a bathroom break. The kind that involves a trowel and baby wipes. When I suggested to Dupuis that he carry on with the group, and that I’d catch up in no time, he insisted they all wait while I walked out of site for a few minutes. Many jokes were had at my expense after. 
  
 His safety-first approach is in contrast to that of most other people we observed that day. A father and daughter hiked up after us, and arrived on the summit as we were enjoying a lunch of dehydrated backpacking food from Good To-Go. “Where can we buy lunch?” The father asked a weather observer. He hadn’t brought any water either, and spent several minutes drinking from a tap at the weather station. He and his daughter were wearing jeans and t-shirts, he had a Harvard sweater tied around his waist. 
  
 As we were departing, the father asked Dupuis if there were any faster routes down the mountain. His dismissive response? “Not in those shoes.” They were wearing slick-soled tennis shoes and I passed them a few minutes later scooting down a particularly slippery portion of the trail on their butts. Dupuis has had to put his own life at risk too many times rescuing the unprepared to be nice to them. 
  
 And that’s the real reason Mount Washington kills. Close enough to the northeast urban conurbation that a summit can be had in a day trip from Boston, or an overnight from New York, the mountain offers some of the best, and most easily-accessible hiking and skiing in the region. 250,000 people are said to visit each year. Doing that is as easy as pulling into the parking lot, and hitting the trailhead. There’s warning signs, there’s stories, and there’s even guides you can hire, but most people are content just to head out for a walk, and see what happens; ignorant of the weather, the terrain, and the dangers. It’s tempting to say that the government should step in, and require permits, or better patrol the trails, but it’s also easy to conclude that if someone is going to set out on a mountain notorious for its death-rate and extreme weather in flip flops, that they’d find a way to die elsewhere if this hike wasn’t available. 
  
 Even the experienced are prone to underestimating the mountain’s risks. Dupuis says Matrosova’s gear was good, “But she didn’t have any cushion.” As the weather turned, which here it’s prone to do, she didn’t have a shelter, she didn’t have extra insulation, she didn’t have a hiking buddy. With any of those things, much less all three, Dupuis says they probably could have reached her in time. On Washington, it’s lack of preparation, not the mountain, that kills. ||||| WATCH: 109-MPH Winds On Mount Washington Lift Man Off His Feet 
  
 Mount Washington Observatory/ YouTube 
  
 Though it's mid-May, warmer, milder weather has yet to make its way up to the 6,288-foot peak of New Hampshire's Mount Washington, as a pair of weather observers can attest. 
  
 Mike Dorfman and Tom Padham braved the 109-mph gusts at the top of a tower at the Mount Washington Observatory to record the hourly weather conditions. Dorfman wrote about the experience in a blog post and posted a video to go along with it. 
  
 This is how Dorfman described the experience: 
  
 "The Sherman Adams building has 3 foot thick concrete walls and 3 layers of bullet-resistant glass windows. Even with this protection, the constant, dull roar of the wind is ever-present in the Observatory's Weather Room. Heading up to the tower to deice every hour is an adventure; the enclosed parapet-like tower roars like the sound of a jet engine as a plane is taking off, and exiting the top door of the parapet is like opening up the window of that ascending jet." 
  
 In the video posted Monday, the weather observer fights to stay upright as the winds buffet him atop the snowy mountain. At one point, he launches himself into the howling wind and is briefly airborne before tumbling to the ground and sliding across the icy ground. 
  
 The powerful winds are something to behold, but they're nothing compared with the record 231-mph winds recorded on the mountain in 1934. 
  
 Known for its extreme weather, the observatory says "winter is Mount Washington's most alluring season," when "the peak's extreme conditions rival those of Mount Everest and the Polar regions." ||||| As she climbed out of the car 90 minutes before sunrise, Kate Matrosova could not have seen the top of Mount Washington, 5,000 feet above in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. It was 5 a.m., still dark and already overcast on the Sunday before Presidents’ Day. 
  
 The forecast was frightening, but it did not dissuade her: Matrosova was headed for the summit. 
  
 Up there, it was minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit — cold by the standards of those who live at sea level, but mild by the measure of the mountain in winter. The wind at the top blew steady, around 40 miles an hour. But in a place that boasts of the worst weather on earth, that’s not uncommon — or even severe. 
  
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 Did the wind whip hard in the Appalachia parking lot on Route 2 in Randolph, N.H., where Matrosova’s husband dropped her off? 
  
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 If it did, it did not dissuade her. Layered in down and Gore-tex, armed with goggles to shield her face and heavy-duty crampons to affix to her high-tech boots, Matrosova had planned to hike up the mountain range from the north and down the other side. 
  
 One by one, she would climb to the top of four mountains named for men whose memories the holiday also honors: Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Washington. 
  
 Facebook Kate Matrosova. 
  
 Bad weather was on the way. But while forecasts warned of blizzards in New Hampshire, the winds in the mountains were not predicted to be at their worst until later Sunday. Matrosova planned to hike down the south side of the range, past the Lakes of the Clouds, along the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail and out to the Mount Washington Cog Railway by 6 p.m. 
  
 Her husband, Charlie Farhoodi, would be waiting. 
  
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 In the parking lot, she scaled the nearly 6-foot-tall snowbank left by plows. Across a snowmobile raceway and a few paces up the narrow trailhead, a sign warns hikers bluntly of the risk they are about to bear: 
  
 Try this trail only if you are in top physical condition, well clothed and carrying extra clothing and food. Many have died above timberline from exposure. Turn back at the first sign of bad weather. 
  
 Matrosova, 32, was fit and strong and smart. A trader at BNP Paribas on Wall Street, she was also driven and determined. She had undertaken some strenuous climbs before, and this was the vacation she had planned. 
  
 And if Matrosova saw the sign by the light of her headlamp in the pre-dawn darkness — if she read every word before she set out between the trees — it did not dissuade her, either. 
  
 Trouble in the mountains 
  
 The call came over the radio in Sergeant Mark Ober’s cruiser around 3:30 p.m. Sunday, and within moments he knew the day had turned dire. 
  
 A hiker was in trouble in the mountains, a State Police dispatcher told Ober, a conservation officer for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. From the radio call, he learned Matrosova’s name and her vital statistics. He now had her husband’s name and cellphone number, too. 
  
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 Most importantly, he knew her location. Matrosova had pushed the button on a personal locator beacon. That triggered an instantaneous alert at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Fla., where emergency satellite signals from all such devices are monitored. 
  
 Operators in Florida immediately called the phone numbers associated with the beacon’s registration: The first, to Matrosova’s cellphone, had bounced to voicemail. Farhoodi, waiting in his hotel room in Gorham, got the second call and dialed 911. 
  
 So, just minutes after Matrosova pushed the button on her device, the details of her distress had reached Ober. 
  
 He plugged the GPS coordinates the dispatcher had given him into the laptop in his cruiser, and saw the location: south of the ridge between Mount Adams and Mount Madison, far above the tree line and the protection from the wind it affords. 
  
 Up there, the tree line is often the boundary between life and death. 
  
 Next, he checked the weather at the Mount Washington Observatory. 
  
 Between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., the temperature at the summit was 21 degrees below zero. The wind was blowing 77 miles per hour, and the wind chill was -67. In that wind and cold, frostbite develops on exposed skin in minutes. And it was only going to get colder. 
  
 Ober knew this could be deadly. In conditions that dangerous, rescues are not always attempted. Risking the lives of dozens of rescuers to save one person does not always make sense — a week or two earlier, the conditions had been so hazardous, Fish and Game Lieutenant Wayne Saunders said, that a party could not be sent to save a woman who collapsed. The people she was with loaded her into a sleeping bag and dragged her back to safety. 
  
 But Matrosova had no one with her. 
  
 Ober called his Fish and Game colonel and described the situation and the conditions — the decision to send a team in search of Matrosova belonged to the colonel. He decided they would attempt to save her. 
  
 And he called Farhoodi, a vice president at J.P. Morgan in New York. Farhoodi described Matrosova’s mountaineering experience — extensive, he said — as well as her determination and her itinerary. 
  
 In better conditions, her plan might have been doable, if ambitious within the time constraints. But weather is everything in the Whites. 
  
 Facebook Kate Matrosova and her husband Charlie Farhoodi. 
  
 “It gave me pause,” Ober said. “Nobody attempts that at this time of year, in those conditions. Certainly [not] alone.” 
  
 She had known the forecast, Ober said, but forged ahead. “This was her plan. She wanted to accomplish it. The weather didn’t seem to faze her that much.” 
  
 If she activated her emergency beacon, Farhoodi told Ober, it was because she was in real trouble. Ober told Farhoodi what the rescuers were up against. 
  
 And then Ober began raising the only people who might be able to save her life. 
  
 His first calls went to the conservation officers who are part of the Fish and Parks advanced search and rescue team — world-class climbers who perform daring rescues above the tree line. 
  
 Then he called Rick Wilcox, the president of the Mountain Rescue Service. If anybody could save Matrosova, it was Wilcox’s team. 
  
 “They’re the cream of the crop,” Ober said. “They’re the guys that will go up there and do stuff that normal people won’t, when it comes to saving a life.” 
  
 Assembling a rescue squad 
  
 Steve Larson’s phone rang a little after 5 p.m. On the line when he picked up at his home in Eaton Center, N.H., was a recorded alert marshalling the volunteer members of the Mountain Rescue Service. 
  
 The recording didn’t have much information, but it had enough. Larson began scrambling to get his gear together. 
  
 The call did not come as a shock to Larson, a soft-spoken, unassuming 58-year-old with a kind of wiry strength earned only from a life lived outdoors. “When you have a holiday week and bad weather, it’s almost a given that this is going to happen,” he said. 
  
 After gearing up, it took him 20 minutes to drive to North Conway to meet the three other rescuers who responded to the call. They gathered at Wilcox’s store, International Mountain Equipment, and went over their plan, distributed radios, and handed out other team equipment. 
  
 By then, a second location from the emergency beacon had bounced from the satellite to Florida — this one below the tree line, on the north side of the mountain. 
  
 The second beacon came as good news, Larson said. If Matrosova still had her wits about her, she would do anything to get to that line — it was her best chance of surviving. 
  
 Where the trees give way to open rocky terrain, there is no shelter from the punishing wind. By Monday morning, gusts would register at more than 140 miles per hour. Almost nothing can live up there in such conditions. 
  
 Below the tree line, though, the wind howls but does not bite nearly so hard. Someone with the right gear and a little luck could dig a shelter in the chest-deep snow and hunker down until morning. If Matrosova had made it down to the trees, as the second beacon location suggested, the chances that rescuers might reach her alive were surprisingly good. 
  
 So sometime around 7, not far behind a team of three conservation officers and with the temperature hovering around 30-below at the summit, the four men trudged up the Valley Way trail Matrosova had hiked 14 hours earlier. Another four-man Mountain Rescue Service team would follow later. 
  
 “My first thought was that it was really inappropriate for anybody to be up there,” said Max Lurie, 28, who responded to the second Mountain Rescue Service call and began his ascent around 10:30 Sunday night. 
  
 “It was cold — one of the coldest nights of the year — and the wind was howling,” Lurie said. “I don’t go up there when there are conditions like that.” 
  
 Larson could recall only a half-dozen times when it had been this bad. The Valley Way trail passed relatively quickly. It was cold, but with good gear and no wind, it was not unmanageable. And the trail was packed down from hikers traversing the same route. 
  
 But as they neared the location of Matrosova’s beacon reading, the hike turned into a crawl. 
  
 Off the packed trail, the men forced their way through snow that reached their chests despite their snowshoes, hacking their way through brush. In the cold darkness, their headlamps bobbed above the snow. 
  
 Larson’s spirits sank. 
  
 Even if Matrosova had fought her way back to the tree line, how could she have traversed this? It took some of the world’s best mountaineers two hours to travel a quarter-mile in this terrain. Why would she have abandoned the relatively easy trail to take this on? 
  
 “It just didn’t feel right to me,” Larson said. “She had no business being there.” 
  
 It was after midnight when they arrived at the coordinates the emergency beacon had described. It was 35 below zero. There was no sign of Matrosova. 
  
 By then, a third beacon reading had arrived — this one far to the south, on the other side of the peaks. Suddenly, what had seemed to be the calculated movements of someone fighting for her life now appeared to be the nonsensical output of a broken machine. 
  
 Exhausted, the team turned back. 
  
 At 3 a.m., they walked past the warning sign, across the snowmobile run, over the bank, and into the parking lot. 
  
 Paul Hayes for The Boston Globe Kate Matrosova began her trek on the Valley Way trail, intending to do a hike in the White Mountains in honor of President’s Day. 
  
 Scattered signs 
  
 By Monday morning, there were 11 readings from the beacon, some overlapping and others far afield. 
  
 But there were also more people ready to search. 
  
 A team from Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue, another area volunteer group, was dispatched to the original beacon location, near the Star Lake trail between Mount Madison and Mount Adams, south of the ridgeline between the peaks. 
  
 Mike Pelchat, a state parks employee who volunteers as a search and rescue worker, said he got a call to be on standby Sunday night. He put a pack together and was on the trail around 9 a.m. Monday. 
  
 Carrying 40-pound packs, the team hiked up the mountain. 
  
 “I’m an optimist,” said Pelchat, 60, who lives in Gorham in the shadow of the mountains. “Over more than 30-odd years, I’ve seen some amazing feats of survival. People can survive if they can get out of that wind.” 
  
 But by Monday morning, that wind was gusting upwards of 100 miles an hour. The Androscoggin Valley team members were being tossed from the trail like toddlers toppling on a playground. 
  
 They checked on each other often. In the savage wind, wearing gear that covered every inch of skin, that meant huddling close and shouting their loudest. 
  
 At the top of Valley Way trail, they huddled at Madison Spring Hut — a small shelter that was closed for the winter but substantial enough to briefly block the wind. 
  
 Up over the ridge, there was no such shelter. The blowing snow can eradicate any trail that might have existed. The frigid air and brutal wind on the ridge are what make these mountains a training ground for the world’s tallest peaks. 
  
 “A lot of people relish the severe weather,” Pelchat said. “That’s how they test and train themselves for the higher mountains around the world.” 
  
 But Sunday, he knew, had gotten colder and colder as the hours passed. The wind had driven harder and harder. What had been a mild Sunday morning gave way to hell: According to Weather Now, a website that tracks weather stations around the globe, there was a moment Monday morning when the peak of Mount Washington was the second-coldest measured place on earth, the Conway Daily Sun reported. 
  
 The first was a weather station at the South Pole. 
  
 “We thought it was going to be grim,” Pelchat said. “We were preparing ourselves for what we might find.” 
  
 It took nearly five hours to reach the location from which that first beacon — and three others since — had emanated. The team of 11 rescuers combed the coordinates and then doubled back, fanning out to search the area. 
  
 Around 2 p.m., a few hundred feet off the trail, Pelchat saw someone down on the ground. 
  
 Maybe one of the team had fallen over again, he thought. 
  
 But Kate Matrosova did not move, or stagger to her feet. 
  
 Her pack was off, and her face was scraped and cut. Her headlamp was still in place. 
  
 “It looked like she got blown off the Star Lake trail,” Pelchat said. “A big gust of wind picked her up and blew her off the trail.” 
  
 She died where the wind left her. 
  
 Matt Bowman/AVSAR An Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue team and Mountain Rescue Service team searched for Matrosova. Her body was found 22 1/2 hours after her distress call. 
  
 Retracing her steps 
  
 Along with the beacon that she hoped would save her life, Matrosova had brought another GPS device with her that day — one that guided her along snow-covered trails and tracked her progress. 
  
 So after rescuers bore Matrosova’s body down the frigid mountain to the hearse waiting in the parking lot below, conservation officers were able to piece together her path. 
  
 She first turned the device on when she emerged at the tree line, and she followed the Appalachian Trail directly to the top of Mount Madison, 5,367 feet above sea level. She followed the trail back down and stopped at the Madison Spring Hut to take a picture of herself, said Saunders, the fish and game lieutenant. 
  
 She looked strong and healthy. Already, though, she was behind the schedule she’d set. 
  
 With the fearsome wind at her back, she headed south along Star Lake Trail, following it to the summit of Mount Adams — 5,794 feet. 
  
 She surely knew by then that she would never complete the route she had planned: Her GPS tracker shows her turning back, retracing her steps along Star Lake Trail, headed for the hut and tree line below. 
  
 But if a tailwind pushed her up the mountain, a headwind held her there. By the early afternoon, gusts were already topping 100 miles per hour. Even along the south side of the mountain ridge, the full force of the wind was assaulting Matrosova. 
  
 Turning back was the right decision, but it came too late. 
  
 By 3:30 p.m., she was off the trail, in the lonely place where Mike Pelchat would find her body 22½ hours later. 
  
 Alone a treacherous mile above the world, she pushed the button on her locator beacon. 
  
 Paul Hayes for The Boston Globe Signs at the start of the trail warn potential hikers about the dangers and lack of shelter ahead. 
  
 Toeing a line 
  
 No one will ever know for certain how long she survived. Some take her headlamp as evidence that she held out at least until dark; others aren’t so sure. 
  
 Had she turned on her cellphone, Ober said, she might have been surprised to find that she could get through to 911. But she did not. 
  
 “It was negligent for her to be up there,” Lurie said. The conditions overnight were among the worst he’s seen, he said. 
  
 Though she was not a novice — people strand themselves on these mountains in rubber boots and jeans — the truest tests of skill out here are not physical. 
  
 “Her decision clearly speaks to her inexperience,” Lurie said. 
  
 But her route, Saunders said, “shows she was thinking the whole time.” She aborted her trek and tried to make it back to safety. 
  
 “She wasn’t wandering around the mountain,” Saunders said. 
  
 Finally dissuaded from her goal, she was trying, strategically and systematically, to save her own life. 
  
 “She was the victim of a combination of bad judgment and bad luck,” Larson said. But “people make worse errors in judgment all the time” and don’t lose their lives. 
  
 What haunts Larson is how close he came in his attempt to rescue her. 
  
 “One lesson in all this, for all of this whiz-bang technology, it obviously is not spot-on,” Larson said. If his group of rescuers had had only the one true set of coordinates of her location — had they not spent hours bushwhacking through chest-deep snow to a remote place she’d never been — they might have reached her 14 hours earlier than Pelchat did. 
  
 Maybe, he said, they would have found her: Frostbitten. Frigid. Alive. 
  
 But her beacon was rated for 20-below, Saunders said. The air was far colder. And mountain shadows, he said, can sometimes trick even modern technology. 
  
 “Maybe she relied a little too much on the technology,” Pelchat said. “Maybe she thought she could turn back. But the temperatures, and the wind, got the best of her.” 
  
 The weather was not the only thing that got the best of her, of course. 
  
 “When you’re goal-oriented, that makes you successful in the business world,” Pelchat said. “That also can put your blinders on.” 
  
 The single-minded determination that drives people to climb mountains in the first place is the same quality that can doom them. 
  
 And though the ridgeline between these mountains is narrow, it is not as narrow as the line between pushing too hard and not pushing hard enough. 
  
 Had she turned back sooner and made for the line where wind gives way to the woods, Kate Matrosova may have walked away from the mountain cold and disappointed and alive. 
  
 But she did not. 
  
 During winter in the Whites, the narrowest line is the one between life and death. 
  
 Paul Hayes for The Boston Globe 
  
 Nestor Ramos can be reached at nestor.ramos@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @NestorARamos |||||
– "Varför dödar ett så litet berg så många människor?" Det är frågan Wes Siler, som skriver för Outside Online, ställde sig för att besvara. Berget är 6 288-fot-tall Mt. Washington, en del av New Hampshires White Mountain-kedja, och sedan rekord började 1849 har omkring 150 personer dött där. I februari 2015 blev Kate Matrosova en av dem. Inför vindar på upp till 140 mph och en temperatur på 35-under på toppen, 32-åriga erfarna utomhuskvinna dog av exponering innan räddningsarbetare kunde nå henne. (The Boston Globe skrev om tragedin på djupet.) "Gud vet bara varför hon inte vände tillbaka", berättar en av räddningsarbetarna, Steve Dupuis, för Siler. Paret vandrade Mt. Washington nyligen, och innan de kom på spåret, berättade en delstatspolis för dem om kanadensiska Francois Carrier, som inte hade setts sedan de startade berget tidigare denna månad i flip-flops och en T-shirt. Sökandet efter Carrier har avbrutits, rapporterar WMTW. Dagen efter avblåstes det, konstaterar Siler, temperaturen på berget var 20-under – och det är en del av svaret på frågan om varför Mt. Washington är så dödligt. ”Mount Washington sitter i korsningen mellan flera stora stormbanor”, säger en väderobservatör, vilket skapar extremt, oförutsägbart väder. Den 16 maj nådde vindbyar på berget 109mph, per NPR. (Se video här.) Rekordet, satt 1934, var 231 mph. Förutom vädret skriver Siler, Mt. Washington består av tuff terräng, och faran med laviner och isfall väver upp sig. Siler konstaterar att berget, förrädiskt som det är, är lättillgängligt för oerfarna vandrare och kommer till slutsatsen att "på Washington är det brist på förberedelser, inte berget, som dödar." (Resten av en klättrare som förlorat 16 år har hittats i Tibet.) Utöka denna sammanfattning.
"Why does such a small mountain kill so many people?" That is the question Wes Siler, writing for Outside Online, asked to answer. The mountain is 6,288-foot-tall Mt. Washington, part of New Hampshire's White Mountain chain, and since records began in 1849 about 150 people have died there. In February 2015, Kate Matrosova became one of them. Faced with winds of up to 140 mph and a temperature of 35-under on top, 32-year-old experienced outdoor woman died of exposure before rescue workers could reach her. (The Boston Globe wrote about the tragedy in depth.) "God only knows why she didn't turn back," one of the rescuers, Steve Dupuis, tells Siler. The couple wandered Mt. Washington recently, and before they got on the track, a state police officer told them about Canadian Francois Carrier, which had not been seen since they started the mountain earlier this month in flip-flops and a T-shirt. The search for Carrier has been aborted, reports WMTW. The day after, Siler notes, the temperature of the mountain was 20-under – and that is part of the answer to the question as to why Mt. Washington is so deadly. “Mount Washington sits at the intersection of several major storms,” says a weather observer, creating extreme, unpredictable weather. On 16 May, gusts of wind reached on Mount 109mph, per NPR. (See video here.) The record, set in 1934, was 231 mph. In addition to the weather, Siler writes, Mt. Washington consists of rough terrain, and the danger of avalanches and icefalls looms. Siler notes that the mountain, treacherously as it is, is easily accessible to inexperienced hikers and comes to the conclusion that "on Washington there is a lack of preparation, not the mountain, that kills." (The rest of a climber who lost 16 years has been found in Tibet.) Extend this summary.
Myndigheterna har stängt av sökandet efter en försvunnen kanadensisk vandrare vars bil hittades i ett besökscentrum nära Mount Washington. Pinkham Notch vandrare senast sett måndag rapporterat saknas New Hampshire Fish & Game besättningar söker efter en man som senast sågs måndag på Pinkham Notch. Fler myndigheter inledde en sökning torsdag efter 47-årige Francois Carrier från Drummondville, Quebec. Statliga naturvårdstjänstemän och frivilliga tillbringade lördagen med att söka i och omkring besökscentret efter honom. Räddningshundarna hittade Carriers backpack, som myndigheterna tror att han förlorade 8 maj under vandringen. Ett vittne kontaktade polisen på lördag eftermiddag om en man han tror var Carrier. Vittnet säger att han såg honom bära en väska tidigare i veckan. Myndigheterna säger att Carriers familj har anlänt från Quebec och kommer att fortsätta leta efter honom. Han har lagts till i den nationella databasen för saknade personer. White Mountain-kedjan, inklusive Mount Washington, är ett populärt utflyktsmål. En man står framför Mount Washington. Foto: Mark Cushman IdefinitivtWild IndefinitelyWild är en livsstilskrönika som berättar om äventyrsresor i naturen, fordonen och redskapen som tar oss dit, och de människor vi möter längs vägen. Följ oss på Facebook, Instagram och Twitter. Före soluppgången, en måndagsmorgon i februari förra året, släppte Kate Matrosovas man av henne vid en stig i White Mountains i New Hampshire. En erfaren och välutrustad utomhuskvinna, Matrosova planerade att slutföra president Traverse den dagen, en vandring som skulle se henne så småningom toppa Mount Washington, efter att ha avslutat flera mindre toppar som leder till det. Hon skulle aldrig ses levande igen. Förra veckan vandrade jag uppför berget med Steve Dupuis, en lokal bergsguide och räddningsvolontär. Han var en av de första som svarade när Matrosovas personliga lokaliseringsfyr gick av. Han och hans team skulle så småningom tappra vindbyar på 140 mph, och vind kyla så lågt som -100 grader försöker nå henne. Under räddningsförsöket gjorde den uppmätta temperaturen på -35 grader på bergets topp den till jordens näst kallaste plats, efter sydpolen. — Gud vet bara varför hon inte vände om, klagade Dupuis för oss. En felande signal indikerade Maltrosova kan ha varit på tre olika platser, och teamet slösade bort värdefull tid genom att dela upp sig för att söka var. När de fann henne vid den tredje hade hon dött av exponering. Den dag vi vandrade nådde temperaturen vid berget Washingtons topp 56 grader. Inga minus. Himlen var blå, och det fanns ingen skönjbar vind. Men innan vi gav oss i väg gav en polis oss en beskrivning av en försvunnen vandrare. Fyrtiosjuårige Francois Carrier från Quebec sågs senast ge sig ut på vandringen iklädd flip-flops och en T-shirt. Flera timmar senare, på vägen ner, kom vi över sökar- och räddningsarbetare som gick en polislinje genom skogen och letade efter honom. Igår avblåstes sökningen. Hans bil sitter fortfarande på parkeringen vid Pinkham Notch-spåret. Temperaturen på berget nådde -20 grader på måndag morgon. Om Carrier uttalas död, tar han bergets totalt över 150 dödsoffer, sedan rekord började 1849. Vinden blåser mot Washington från nordväst. Här kan du se den naturliga tratten mot sin topp skapad av omgivande berg. Klicka för att förstora. Foto: Summit Terragraphics Varför dödar ett så litet berg så många människor? En orsak är uppenbarligen det extrema vädret. ”Mount Washington sitter i korsningen mellan flera stora stormtracks”, förklarar Weather Observer Tom Padham. Han är stationerad på bergets topp, och gav oss en rundtur i sin väderstation. Jetströmmen bär nästan varje storm som rör sig västerut och sydväst-mot-nordöst över landet, rakt över Mount Washington. Där korsar de med vädersystem som rör sig söder-till-norr, uppför Atlantkusten. Bara några dagar efter vårt besök spelade Padham in följande video: Berget sitter också vid halsen på en naturlig tratt. Land väster om bergen är mestadels platt, vilket skapar få hinder. När den blåser in från nordväst stöter vinden på lägre berg som fläktar ut från Washington och kanaliserar luft direkt till den. Bergets egen topografi spelar också en roll; dess mycket branta västansikte komprimerar vinden som fångas i den tratten ännu längre. ”Luften fungerar som en vätska”, förklarar Padham, ”och när man pressar ihop en vätska måste den accelerera.” Den högsta vindhastigheten som människor direkt observerat var på toppen. Där stod 1934 två väderobservatörer utanför med en anemometer och mätte vindhastigheter på 231 mph. Apparaten slutade att fungera med den hastigheten, även när de kände att den var starkare. En lätt del av Lejonets huvudspår. Lägg märke till de lösa stenblocken, det branta avfallet och rösena. Foto: Alex Kerney På grund av det extrema vädret slutar träden att växa i Vita bergen på cirka 4 400 meters höjd. På Mount Washingtons östra sida lämnar det omkring 1,5 kilometer av vandring, helt utsatt, ofta i whiteoutförhållanden, innan du når toppen. Reguljära rösen längs vägen försöker styra vandrare bort från den tusenfotade branten bara några dussin fot söderut. Innan just den stigen – Lejonhuvudet – når trädgränsen klättrar den först genom flera branta raviner, vilket kräver att vandrare rör upp stenblock. Om snö och is finns, kan den, och faller när människor passerar. Ett framträdande tecken vid stigen varnar för denna fara, men det lyckas ändå fånga människor ovetande. En officiell incidentrapport från 1997 lyder: “Den 5 januari upptäcktes liket av Alexandre Cassan – en av fyra medlemmar i en fest som försökte en illa tilltänkt vinteruppstigning av bergstoppen 6,288-fot – av en snöjägare från US Forest Service cirka en timme efter 1420-lavinen nära Lejonhuvudleden på berget Washingtons branta sydostsluttning. Alla utom en hand av Cassan begravdes i snön. Under sommaren, när risken för laviner och isfall avtar, fortsätter risken för vandrare. Själva stigarna – inklusive den populära Tuckerman Ravine Trail – är översållade med lösa, basketstora stenar. Praktiskt taget hela leden är en stor tripping fara, bara väntar på att vrida en vrist, och, om det händer, kommer du inte att kunna gå av leden under din egen kraft. Terrängen blir bara mer upprörd när man svänger in på Lejonhuvudet och försöker bestiga toppens branta södra infart. Och det är det enklaste spåret du kan hitta till toppen. Byggnaden denna skylt är bultad till hålls ner av tunga kedjor som passerar över dess tak. Under stormen som orsakade dessa hastigheter rapporterar väderobservatörerna att de känner att den lyfter från sin grund. Foto: Mount Washington Observatory Naturligtvis är vandring inte den enda aktivitet som äger rum här. Tuckermans ravin, strax söder om toppen, är en populär backcountryskidskål. Redan i mitten av maj kunde vi se folk klättra upp i sitt 40-graders, sprickfyllda och steniga ansikte, bara för att få en sista gång av säsongen i. Dupuis, vår guide, var på plats för ytterligare ett olycksdrabbat räddningsförsök där 2012. En man föll i en spricka, vädret vände, räddningsarbetare kunde inte nå honom den natten, och han frös ihjäl när temperaturen föll. Det tog flera dagar innan de kunde återhämta hans kropp. Det är inte alla som njuter av det lugna vädret vi hade förra veckan. Jag frågade Padham, väderobservatören, hur ofta berget ser blå himmel. — Kanske 10 dagar om året, svarade han. Även på denna klara, lugna dag, med prognosen som kräver att det ska förbli samma över natten, Dupuis insisterade vi på att bära regnskal, baslager, dunjackor, isolerade handskar, en varm hatt, och ta med extra mat och vatten. För att undvika vristvridarna insisterade han även på överankelstövlar. Och även i mitten av maj, är mycket av den 4,2 kilometer långa vandringen fortfarande täckt av is och snö. Mikrospikar var ett annat viktigt han insisterade på att vi skulle bära. Jag använde inte min, men det fanns förmodligen ett par ställen jag skulle ha. Dupuis tar de risker som berget erbjuder på allvar. Vandring mycket snabbare än resten av gruppen, fann jag mig i behov av en toalett paus. Den sorten som inbegriper en murmeldjursstumpar och våtservetter. När jag föreslog Dupuis att han skulle fortsätta med gruppen och att jag skulle hinna ifatt på nolltid, insisterade han på att de alla skulle vänta medan jag gick ut från platsen i några minuter. Många skämt hade jag på min bekostnad efteråt. Hans första säkerhetsstrategi står i kontrast till de flesta andras som vi iakttog den dagen. En far och dotter vandrade upp efter oss, och kom till toppen när vi avnjutit en lunch med uttorkad ryggsäcksmat från Good To-Go. — Var kan vi köpa lunch? frågade fadern en väderobservatör. Han hade inte heller tagit med sig något vatten, och han tillbringade flera minuter med att dricka från en kran på väderstationen. Han och hans dotter hade jeans och t-shirts, han hade en Harvard tröja bunden runt midjan. När vi var på väg frågade fadern Dupuis om det fanns några snabbare vägar nerför berget. Hans avfärdande svar? “Inte i de skorna.” De hade slicksolade tennisskor och jag passerade dem några minuter senare och rusade ner en särskilt hal del av spåret på deras rumpa. Dupuis har varit tvungen att riskera sitt eget liv alltför många gånger för att rädda de oförberedda för att vara snälla mot dem. Och det är den verkliga anledningen till att Mount Washington dödar. Nära nog till nordost urbana tätort som ett toppmöte kan få i en dagsutflykt från Boston, eller en övernattning från New York, erbjuder berget några av de bästa, och mest lättillgängliga vandring och skidåkning i regionen. 250.000 personer sägs besöka varje år. Att göra det är lika lätt som att dra in på parkeringen, och slå i ledhuvudet. Det finns varningsskyltar, berättelser och till och med guider som du kan anställa, men de flesta är nöjda med att bara gå ut på en promenad och se vad som händer; okunniga om vädret, terrängen och farorna. Det är frestande att säga att regeringen bör kliva in, och kräva tillstånd, eller bättre patrullera spåren, men det är också lätt att dra slutsatsen att om någon kommer att ge sig ut på ett berg beryktade för sin dödstal och extremt väder i flip flops, att de skulle hitta ett sätt att dö någon annanstans om denna vandring inte var tillgänglig. Även de erfarna är benägna att underskatta bergets risker. Dupuis säger att Matrosovas redskap var bra, "Men hon hade ingen kudde." När vädret vände, vilket det är benägna att göra, hon hade inte ett skydd, hon hade inte extra isolering, hon hade inte en vandring kompis. Med något av de sakerna, än mindre alla tre, säger Dupuis att de förmodligen kunde ha nått henne i tid. På Washington är det brist på förberedelser, inte berget, som dödar. Â° WATCH: 109-MPH vindar på Mount Washington Lift Man Off His Feet Mount Washington Observatory / YouTube Även om det är mitten av maj, varmare, mildare väder har ännu inte tagit sig upp till 6,288 meters topp av New Hampshire Mount Washington, som ett par väder observatörer kan intyga. Mike Dorfman och Tom Padham trotsade de 109-mph vindbyarna på toppen av ett torn vid Mount Washington Observatory för att registrera timväderförhållandena. Dorfman skrev om upplevelsen i ett blogginlägg och lade upp en video för att gå med på det. Så här beskrev Dorfman upplevelsen: "Sherman Adams-byggnaden har 3 fot tjocka betongväggar och 3 lager skottsäkra glasfönster. Även med detta skydd är det ständiga, tråkiga dånet av vinden ständigt närvarande i observatoriets väderrum. Att gå upp till tornet för att deice varje timme är ett äventyr; det inneslutna parapetliknande tornet brusar som ljudet av en jetmotor när ett plan lyfter, och att gå ut genom den övre dörren på fallskärmen är som att öppna fönstret på det stigande jetplanet." I videon som publiceras på måndagen kämpar väderobservatören för att hålla sig upprätt medan vindarna tränger honom upp på det snöiga berget. Vid ett tillfälle skjuter han in sig i den tjutande vinden och är kortvarigt luftburen innan han tumlar till marken och glider över den isiga marken. De kraftiga vindarna är något att skåda, men de är ingenting jämfört med rekordet 231-mph vindar som spelades in på berget 1934. Känd för sitt extrema väder säger observatoriet "vinter är Mount Washingtons mest lockande säsong", då "toppens extrema förhållanden konkurrerar med Mount Everests och polarregionernas." När Kate Matrosova steg ur bilen 90 minuter före soluppgången, kunde hon inte ha sett toppen av Mount Washington, 5.000 meter ovanför i New Hampshires Vita Berg. Klockan var 5 på morgonen, fortfarande mörk och redan mulet på söndagen före presidenternas dag. Prognosen var skrämmande, men den avrådde henne inte: Matrosova var på väg mot toppmötet. Där uppe var det minus 6 grader — kallt enligt de normer som gäller för dem som lever på havsnivån, men milt enligt bergets mått på vintern. Vinden i toppen blåste stadigt, runt 40 miles i timmen. Men på en plats som skryter om det värsta vädret på jorden är det inte ovanligt — eller ens svårt. Annons Gick vinden piska hårt på Appalachia parkeringen på Route 2 i Randolph, N.H., där Matrosovas make släppte av henne? Få Metro Rubriker i din inkorg: De 10 bästa lokala nyheterna från Boston och runt New England levereras dagligen. Anmäl dig Tack för att du anmälde dig! Anmäl dig till fler nyhetsbrev här Om det gjorde det, avrådde det henne inte. Layed in dun och Gore-tex, beväpnade med skyddsglasögon för att skydda hennes ansikte och tunga krampanfall för att fästa på hennes högteknologiska stövlar, Matrosova hade planerat att vandra upp bergskedjan från norr och ner på andra sidan. En efter en skulle hon klättra upp på toppen av fyra berg som är uppkallade efter män vars minnen semestern också hedrar: Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Washington. Facebook Kate Matrosova. Dåligt väder var på väg. Men medan prognoser varnade för snöstormar i New Hampshire, förutspåddes vindarna i bergen inte vara som värst förrän senare söndag. Matrosova planerade att vandra nerför södra sidan av utbredningsområdet, förbi Molnsjöarna, längs med Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail och ut till Mount Washington Cog Railway klockan 18.00. Hennes man, Charlie Farhoodi, skulle vänta. Annons På parkeringen, hon skalade den nästan 6-fots-all snöbank kvar av plogar. Över en skoterbana och några steg upp på den smala stigen varnar en skylt trubbigt vandrare för den risk de står inför: Prova denna stig endast om du är i topp fysiskt skick, välklädd och bär extra kläder och mat. Många har dött ovanför timmergränsen av exponering. Vänd tillbaka vid första tecken på dåligt väder. Matrosova, 32, var frisk och stark och smart. En handlare på BNP Paribas på Wall Street, hon var också driven och bestämd. Hon hade gjort några ansträngande klättringar tidigare, och detta var den semester hon hade planerat. Och om Matrosova såg tecknet vid strålkastarljuset i det förmörkade mörkret — om hon läste vartenda ord innan hon gav sig ut mellan träden — avrådde det henne inte heller. Trubbel i bergen Samtalet kom över radion i sergeant Mark Obers kryssare runt 15:30 på söndagen, och inom några ögonblick visste han att dagen hade blivit ödesdiger. En vandrare var i knipa i bergen, en delstatspolis expedit berättade för Ober, en naturvårdsofficer för New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Av radioanropet fick han reda på Matrosovas namn och hennes livsnödvändighetsstatistik. Han hade nu också hennes mans namn och mobilnummer. Han visste var hon var. Matrosova hade tryckt på knappen på en personlig lokaliseringsfyr. Det utlöste en omedelbar varning vid Tyndall Air Force Base i Panama City, Fla., där nödsatellitsignaler från alla sådana enheter övervakas. Operatörer i Florida ringde omedelbart de telefonnummer som var förknippade med fyrens registrering: Den första, till Matrosovas mobiltelefon, hade studsat till röstbrevlåda. Farhoodi, som väntade på sitt hotellrum i Gorham, fick det andra samtalet och ringde 112. Bara några minuter efter det att Matrosova hade tryckt på knappen på hennes apparat hade detaljerna om hennes nöd nått Ober. Han kopplade in GPS-koordinaterna som avsändaren hade gett honom i laptopen i sin kryssare, och såg platsen: söder om åsen mellan Mount Adams och Mount Madison, långt ovanför trädgränsen och det skydd mot vinden den ger. Där uppe är trädgränsen ofta gränsen mellan liv och död. Därefter kollade han vädret vid Mount Washington-observatoriet. Mellan kl. 15.00 och 16.00 var temperaturen på toppen 21 grader under noll. Vinden blåste 77 miles per timme, och vindskylan var -67. I den vinden och kylan utvecklas köldskador på exponerad hud på några minuter. Och det skulle bara bli kallare. Ober visste att det här kunde vara dödligt. Under förhållanden som är farliga försöker man inte alltid rädda människor. Att riskera livet på dussintals räddningsarbetare för att rädda en person är inte alltid vettigt — en vecka eller två tidigare, hade förhållandena varit så farliga, sade Fish och Game Löjtnant Wayne Saunders, att en fest inte kunde skickas för att rädda en kvinna som kollapsade. De hon hade lastat henne i en sovsäck och släpat henne tillbaka i säkerhet. Men Matrosova hade ingen med sig. Ober kallade sin fisk- och leköverste och beskrev situationen och förhållandena — beslutet att skicka ett lag på jakt efter Matrosova tillhörde översten. Han bestämde att de skulle försöka rädda henne. Och han ringde Farhoodi, en vicepresident på J.P. Morgan i New York. Farhoodi beskrev Matrosovas bergsbestigningserfarenhet — omfattande, sade han — liksom hennes beslutsamhet och hennes resplan. Under bättre förhållanden kunde hennes plan ha varit genomförbar, om den var ambitiös inom tidsramarna. Men väder är allt i de vita. Facebook Kate Matrosova och hennes man Charlie Farhoodi. — Det gav mig en paus, sade Ober. — Ingen försöker att vid den här tiden på året, under de förhållandena. Visst [inte] ensam.” Hon hade känt till prognosen, Ober sade, men smidde framåt. — Det här var hennes plan. Hon ville åstadkomma det. Vädret tycktes inte skrämma henne så mycket.” Om hon aktiverade sin nödfyr, berättade Farhoodi för Ober, det var för att hon var i verkliga problem. Ober berättade för Farhoodi vad räddningsarbetarna var emot. Ober började uppfostra de enda som kunde rädda hennes liv. Hans första samtal gick till naturvårdsofficerarna som ingår i Fish and Parks avancerade sök- och räddningsteam – klättrare i världsklass som utför vågade räddningar ovanför trädgränsen. Därefter ringde han Rick Wilcox, ordföranden för bergsräddningstjänsten. Om någon kunde rädda Matrosova, var det Wilcox team. — De är gräddan av grödan, sade Ober. "De är de killar som kommer att gå upp dit och göra saker som normala människor inte kommer, när det gäller att rädda ett liv." Samla en räddningspatrull Steve Larsons telefon ringde lite efter 17:00 på linjen när han plockade upp på sitt hem i Eaton Center, N.H., var en inspelad alert rangerling de frivilliga medlemmarna i Mountain Rescue Service. Inspelningen hade inte mycket information, men den fick nog. Larson började skrida till verket för att få ihop sin utrustning. Samtalet kom inte som en chock för Larson, en mjukspråkig, anspråkslös 58-åring med en slags wanlig styrka som bara tjänade på ett liv som levde utomhus. — När man har semestervecka och dåligt väder, är det nästan en självklarhet, att detta skall ske, sade han. Efter att ha rustat upp tog det honom 20 minuter att köra till North Conway för att möta de tre andra räddningstrupperna som svarade på uppmaningen. De samlades i Wilcox affär, International Mountain Equipment, och gick igenom sin plan, distribuerade radioapparater och delade ut annan teamutrustning. Vid det laget hade en andra plats från nödfyren studsat från satelliten till Florida — denna under trädgränsen, på norra sidan av berget. Den andra fyren kom som goda nyheter, sa Larson. Om Matrosova fortfarande hade förstånd om henne, skulle hon göra vad som helst för att komma åt den repliken — det var hennes bästa chans att överleva. Där träden ger vika för öppen klippig terräng finns inget skydd mot den straffande vinden. På måndagsmorgonen skulle vindbyar registrera sig i mer än 140 miles per timme. Nästan ingenting kan leva där uppe under sådana förhållanden. Men under trädgränsen tjutar vinden, men biter inte så hårt. Någon med rätt utrustning och lite tur kunde gräva ett skydd i bröstdjupet snö och hunka ner till morgonen. Om Matrosova hade tagit sig ner till träden, som den andra ledfyrplatsen antydde, var chanserna att räddningsarbetarna skulle nå henne levande förvånansvärt goda. Så någon gång runt 7, inte långt bakom ett team av tre bevarande officerare och med temperaturen svävande runt 30-under på toppen, hade de fyra männen traskat upp Valley Way leden Matrosova hade vandrat 14 timmar tidigare. Ett annat fyramannalandräddningsteam skulle följa senare. — Min första tanke var, att det var riktigt olämpligt för någon att vara där uppe, sade Max Lurie, 28, som svarade på det andra bergsräddningstjänstsamtalet och började sin bestigning omkring kl. 10:30 söndagskväll. — Det var kallt — en av årets kallaste nätter — och vinden tjöt, sade Lurie. — Jag går inte upp dit, när det finns förhållanden som dessa. kunde Larson bara erinra sig en halvdussin gånger, då det hade varit så här illa. Dalvägsleden passerade relativt snabbt. Det var kallt, men med bra redskap och ingen vind var det inte ohanterligt. Och stigen var packad ner från vandrare som färdades samma väg. Men när de närmade sig platsen för Matrosovas fyrläsning, förvandlades vandringen till ett kryp. Av det packade spåret tvingade männen sig fram genom snö som nådde deras bröst trots sina snöskor och hackade sig fram genom penseln. I det kalla mörkret sipprade deras strålkastare upp ovanför snön. Larsons andar sjönk. Även om Matrosova hade kämpat sig tillbaka till trädgränsen, hur kunde hon då ha gått igenom detta? Det tog några av världens bästa bergsbestigare två timmar att färdas en kvartsmil i denna terräng. Varför skulle hon ha övergett det relativt lätta spåret? — Det kändes helt enkelt inte rätt för mig, sade Larson. “Hon hade ingen anledning att vara där.” Det var efter midnatt när de kom fram till koordinaterna nödfyren hade beskrivit. Det var 35 under noll. Det fanns inga spår av Matrosova. Vid det laget hade en tredje fyrläsning kommit — den här långt söderut, på andra sidan topparna. Plötsligt tycktes det som hade varit de beräknade rörelserna hos någon som kämpade för hennes liv nu vara den meningslösa produktionen av en trasig maskin. Utmattat vände laget om. Klockan 3 på morgonen gick de förbi varningsskylten, tvärs över snöskoterkörningen, över banken och in på parkeringen. Paul Hayes för The Boston Globe Kate Matrosova började sin vandring på Valley Way-leden, och hade för avsikt att göra en vandring i White Mountains för att hedra presidentdagen. Spridda skyltar På måndag morgon var det 11 avläsningar från fyren, några överlappande och andra långt borta. Men det fanns också fler människor som var redo att söka. Ett team från Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue, en annan grupp frivilliga i området, skickades till den ursprungliga fyrplatsen, nära Star Lake-leden mellan Mount Madison och Mount Adams, söder om bergslinjen mellan topparna. Mike Pelchat, en anställd i en park som arbetar som räddningsarbetare, sa att han fick ett samtal om att vara i beredskap söndag kväll. Han satte ihop en flock och var på spåren runt 09:00 måndag. Med 40-kilospackar gick laget upp för berget. — Jag är optimist, sade Pelchat, 60, som bor i Gorham i skuggan av bergen. “Över mer än 30-udda år, har jag sett några fantastiska bedrifter av överlevnad. Människor kan överleva om de kan ta sig ut ur den vinden.” Men på måndag morgon, den vinden forsade uppemot 100 miles i timmen. Androscoggin Valley-teamets medlemmar kastades från stigen som småbarn som störtade på en lekplats. De tittade ofta till varandra. I den vilda vinden, med utrustning som täckte varje centimeter av hud, betydde det att huttra tätt och skrika deras högsta ljud. Längst upp på Valley Way - stigen höll de till vid Madison Spring Hut — ett litet skyddsrum som var stängt för vintern men tillräckligt omfattande för att helt kort blockera vinden. Uppe över åsen fanns inget sådant härbärge. Den snö som blåser kan utrota alla spår som kan ha funnits. Den kalla luften och den brutala vinden på åsen är vad som gör dessa berg till en träningsplats för världens högsta toppar. — En hel del människor tycker om det svåra vädret, sade Pelchat. — Det är så de testar och tränar sig för de högre bergen runt om i världen. Men söndagen, visste han, hade blivit kallare och kallare allteftersom timmarna gick. Vinden hade drivit hårdare och hårdare. Vad som hade varit en mild söndag morgon gav vika för helvetet: Enligt Weather Now, en webbplats som spårar väderstationer runt om i världen, fanns det ett ögonblick måndag morgon när toppen av Mount Washington var den näst-kallt uppmätta platsen på jorden, Conway Daily Sun rapporterade. Den första var en väderstation vid Sydpolen. — Vi trodde att det skulle bli bistert, sade Pelchat. ”Vi förberedde oss för vad vi skulle kunna hitta.” Det tog nästan fem timmar att nå den plats som den första fyren – och tre andra sedan – hade kommit från. De elva räddningsmännen kammade koordinaterna och dubblerade dem. De sökte igenom området. Omkring klockan 14.00, några hundra fot utanför stigen, såg Pelchat någon nere på marken. Kanske en i laget hade fallit om igen, tänkte han. Men Kate Matrosova rörde sig inte, eller stapplade till fötterna. Hennes flock var av, och hennes ansikte var skrapat och klippt. Strålkastaren var fortfarande på plats. — Det såg ut, som om hon blivit bortblåst från Star Lake-leden, sade Pelchat. “En stor vindpust plockade upp henne och blåste henne av spåret.” Hon dog där vinden lämnade henne. Matt Bowman/AVSAR An Androscoggin Valley sök- och räddningsteam och räddningsteam sökte efter Matrosova. Hennes kropp hittades 22 1/2 timme efter nödanropet. Matrosova följde hennes steg tillsammans med den fyr som hon hoppades skulle rädda hennes liv, och tog med sig en annan GPS-apparat den dagen – en som vägledde henne längs snötäckta stigar och spårade hennes framsteg. Så efter att räddningsarbetare bar Matrosovas kropp nerför det kalla berget till likvagnen som väntade på parkeringen nedanför, kunde naturvårdsofficerare pussla ihop hennes väg. Hon slog först på apparaten när hon kom fram vid trädgränsen, och hon följde Appalachian Trail direkt till toppen av Mount Madison, 5 367 fot över havet. Hon följde spåret tillbaka ner och stannade vid Madison Spring Hut för att ta en bild av sig själv, sade Saunders, fisken och viltlöjtnant. Hon såg stark och frisk ut. Men hon låg redan efter i det schema hon hade satt. Med den skräckinjagande vinden vid ryggen begav hon sig söderut längs Star Lake Trail och följde den till toppen av berget Adams — 5 794 meter. Hon visste säkert då att hon aldrig skulle kunna slutföra den rutt hon hade planerat: Hennes GPS-spårare visar henne vända tillbaka, åter följa hennes steg längs Star Lake Trail, på väg mot kojan och trädgränsen nedanför. Men om en medvind knuffade henne uppför berget, höll en motvind henne där. Tidigt på eftermiddagen var vindbyarna redan på topp 100 miles per timme. Även längs bergsryggens sydsida anföll vindens fulla kraft Matrosova. Att vända om var rätt beslut, men det kom för sent. Klockan 15.30 var hon borta från spåret, på det ensliga stället där Mike Pelchat skulle hitta sin kropp 221⁄2 timme senare. Ensam en förrädisk mil ovanför världen tryckte hon på knappen på sin lokaliseringsfyr. Paul Hayes för The Boston Globe Signs i början av leden varnar potentiella vandrare för farorna och bristen på skydd framöver. Ingen kommer att veta hur länge hon överlevde. Somliga tar hennes strålkastare som bevis för att hon höll ut åtminstone tills det blev mörkt; andra är inte så säkra på det. Hade hon slagit på mobilen, sa Ober, kunde hon ha blivit förvånad över att hitta att hon kunde komma fram till 911. Men det gjorde hon inte. — Det var försumligt av henne att vara där uppe, sade Lurie. Förhållandena över natten var bland de värsta han sett, sade han. Även om hon inte var någon nybörjare — människor knyter sig på dessa berg i gummistövlar och jeans — är de verkligaste testen av skicklighet här ute inte fysiska. — Hennes beslut talar tydligt till hennes oerfarenhet, sade Lurie. Men hennes rutt, Saunders sa, “visar att hon tänkte hela tiden.” Hon avbröt sin vandring och försökte ta sig tillbaka till säkerhet. — Hon var inte irrande omkring på berget, sade Saunders. Till slut avrådde hon från sitt mål och försökte strategiskt och systematiskt rädda sitt eget liv. – Hon blev offer för en kombination av dåligt omdöme och otur, sade Larson. Men “människor gör värre fel i omdömet hela tiden” och förlorar inte sina liv. Det som hemsöker Larson är hur nära han kom i sitt försök att rädda henne. — En lektion i allt detta, för all denna whiz-bang-teknik, är det uppenbarligen inte spot-on, sade Larson. Om hans grupp av räddningsarbetare hade haft bara en enda sann uppsättning koordinater för hennes plats — om de inte hade tillbringat timmar bushwhacking genom bröstet-djup snö till en avlägsen plats hon aldrig hade varit — de kan ha nått henne 14 timmar tidigare än Pelchat gjorde. Kanske, sade han, de skulle hafva funnit henne: Frostbitten. Frigid. Levande. Men hennes signal var klassad för 20-under, sa Saunders. Luften var mycket kallare. Och bergsskuggor, sade han, kan ibland lura även modern teknik. — Kanske förlitade hon sig litet för mycket på tekniken, sade Pelchat. — Hon kanske trodde, att hon kunde vända om. Men temperaturerna och vinden fick övertaget över henne.” Vädret var inte det enda som fick övertaget över henne, förstås. "När du är målinriktad, det gör dig framgångsrik i affärsvärlden," Pelchat sade. “Det kan också sätta dina blinkers på.” Den ensinnade beslutsamhet som driver människor att klättra i berg i första hand är samma kvalitet som kan domesticera dem. Och även om åslinjen mellan dessa berg är smal, är den inte lika smal som gränsen mellan att trycka för hårt och att inte trycka tillräckligt hårt. Hade hon vänt om tidigare och gjort för linan där vinden ger vika för skogen, kan Kate Matrosova ha gått bort från berget kallt och besviken och levande. Men det gjorde hon inte. Under vintern i de vita är den smalaste linjen den mellan liv och död. Paul Hayes för Boston Globe Nestor Ramos kan nås på nestor.ramos@globe.com . Följ honom på Twitter @NestorARAMOs ...............
Authorities have shut down search for a missing Canadian hiker whose car was found in a visitor center near Mount Washington. Pinkham Notch hikers last seen Monday reported missing New Hampshire Fish & Game crews are searching for a man last seen Monday at Pinkham Notch. More authorities began a search Thursday for 47-year-old Francois Carrier from Drummondville, Quebec. State conservation officials and volunteers spent Saturday searching in and around the visitor center for him. The rescue dogs found Carrier's backpack, which authorities believe he lost May 8 during the hike. A witness contacted the police on Saturday afternoon about a man he thinks was Carrier. The witness says he saw him carry a bag earlier this week. Authorities say Carrier's family has arrived from Quebec and will continue to look for him. He has been added to the national missing persons database. The White Mountain chain, including Mount Washington, is a popular destination. There's a man standing in front of Mount Washington. Photo: Mark Cushman DefinitelyWild IndefinitelyWild is a lifestyle column that tells us about adventure trips in nature, vehicles and tools that take us there, and the people we meet along the way. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Before sunrise, a Monday morning in February last year, Kate Matrosova's husband dropped her off at a trail in the White Mountains, New Hampshire. An experienced and well-equipped outdoor woman, Matrosova planned to complete President Traverse that day, a hike that would see her eventually top Mount Washington, having completed several smaller peaks leading to it. She'd never be seen alive again. Last week, I walked up the mountain with Steve Dupuis, a local mountain guide and rescue volunteer. He was one of the first to respond when Matrosova's personal location beacon went off. He and his team would eventually brave gusts of 140 mph, and wind cold as low as -100 degrees trying to reach her. During the rescue attempt, the measured temperature of -35 degrees on the summit of the mountain made it to the second coldest place on Earth, after the south pole. “God only knows why she didn’t turn around,” Dupuis complained to us. A missing signal indicated Maltrosova may have been in three different locations, and the team wasted valuable time by splitting up to search where. By the time they found her at the third, she had died of exposure. The day we walked, the temperature reached the top 56 degrees Fahrenheit of Mount Washington. No minuses. The sky was blue, and there was no visible wind. But before we left, a police officer gave us a description of a missing hiker. Forty-seven-year-old Francois Carrier from Quebec was last seen embarking on the hike wearing flip-flops and a T-shirt. Several hours later, on the way down, we came across search and rescue workers who walked a police line through the woods looking for him. Yesterday, the search was called off. His car is still in the parking lot at the Pinkham Notch trail. The temperature of the mountain reached -20 degrees on Monday morning. If Carrier is pronounced dead, he takes the mountain's total of over 150 casualties, since records began in 1849. The wind blows towards Washington from the northwest. Here you can see the natural funnel towards its summit created by surrounding mountains. Click to enlarge. Photo: Summit Terragraphics Why does such a small mountain kill so many people? One reason is obviously the extreme weather. "Mount Washington sits at the intersection of several major stormtracks," explains Weather Observer Tom Padham. He's stationed on the top of the mountain, and gave us a tour of his weather station. The jet stream carries almost every storm moving west and southwest-to-northeast across the country, right over Mount Washington. There they cross with weather systems moving south-to-north, up the Atlantic coast. Just a few days after our visit, Padham recorded the following video: The mountain also sits at the neck of a natural funnel. Land west of the mountains is mostly flat, creating few obstacles. As it blows in from the northwest, the wind thrusts on lower mountains fanning out of Washington and channeling air directly to it. The mountain's own topography also plays a role; its very steep west face compresses the wind caught in that funnel even further. “The air acts as a liquid,” Padham explains, “and when you squeeze a fluid it has to accelerate.” The highest wind speed people directly observed was at the top. There were two weather observers outside in 1934 with an anemometer and measured wind speeds of 231 mph. The device stopped working at that speed, even when they felt it was stronger. An easy part of the Lion's main trail. Note the loose boulders, the steep waste and cairns. Photo: Alex Kerney Due to the extreme weather, the trees stop growing in the White Mountains at about 4,400 metres. On the east side of Mount Washington, it leaves about a mile (1.5 km) of hiking, completely exposed, often in whiteout conditions, before reaching the summit. Regular cairns along the road try to steer hikers away from the centipede just a few dozen feet south. Before that path – the Lionhead – reaches the tree line, it first climbs through several steep gorges, requiring hikers to stir up boulders. If snow and ice exist, it can, and falls as people pass. A prominent sign at the path warns of this danger, yet it manages to catch people unawares. An official 1997 incident report reads: “On January 5, the corpse of Alexandre Cassan – one of four members of a party attempting an ill-advised winter climb of the peak 6.288-foot – was discovered by a snow hunter from the US Forest Service about an hour after the 1420 avalanche near the Lion Main Trail on the steep southeast slope of Mount Washington. All but one hand of Cassan was buried in the snow. During the summer, when the risk of avalanches and icefalls subsides, the risk of hikers continues. The trails themselves—including the popular Tuckerman Ravine Trail—are studded with loose, basketball-sized stones. Virtually the entire joint is a great tripping danger, just waiting to twist an ankle, and, if that happens, you won't be able to walk off the joint under your own power. The terrain only gets more upset when you turn onto the Lionhead and try to climb the steep southern entrance of the summit. And that's the easiest track you can find to the top. The building this sign is bolted to is held down by heavy chains passing over its roof. During the storm that caused these speeds, weather observers report feeling that it is taking off from its base. Photo: Mount Washington Observatory Of course, hiking is not the only activity that takes place here. Tuckerman's gorge, just south of the summit, is a popular backcountry ski bowl. Already in mid-May we could see people climbing their 40-degree, crevassed and rocky face, just to get one last time of the season in. Dupuis, our guide, was in place for another accident-stricken rescue attempt there in 2012. A man fell into a crack, the weather turned, rescuers could not reach him that night, and he froze to death when the temperature fell. It took several days before they could recover his body. Not everyone enjoys the calm weather we had last week. I asked Padham, the weather observer, how often the mountain sees blue skies. “Maybe 10 days a year,” he replied. Even on this clear, quiet day, with the forecast requiring it to remain the same overnight, Dupuis we insisted on wearing rainshells, base layer, down jackets, insulated gloves, a warm hat, and bringing extra food and water. To avoid the ankle twists, he also insisted on upper ankle boots. And even in mid-May, much of the 4.2 km walk is still covered in ice and snow. Microspikes were another important thing he insisted we wear. I didn't use mine, but there were probably a couple of places I should have. Dupuis takes seriously the risks offered by the mountain. Hiking much faster than the rest of the group, I found myself in need of a toilet break. The kind involving a marmot stump and wipes. When I suggested Dupuis that he should continue with the group and that I catch up in no time, he insisted that they all wait while I walked out of the place for a few minutes. I had a lot of jokes at my expense afterwards. His first security strategy contrasts with that of most others that we observed that day. A father and daughter walked up after us, and came to the top when we enjoyed a lunch with dried-out backpack food from Good To-Go. “Where can we buy lunch?” asked the father a weather observer. He had also brought no water, and he spent several minutes drinking from a tap at the weather station. He and his daughter had jeans and t-shirts, he had a Harvard sweater tied around his waist. As we were on our way, the father asked Dupuis if there were any faster roads down the mountain. His dismissive answer? “Not in those shoes.” They had slick-soled tennis shoes and I passed them a few minutes later and rushed down a particularly slippery part of the track on their butt. Dupuis has had to risk his own life too many times to save the unprepared to be kind to them. And that's the real reason Mount Washington is killing. Near enough to northeast urban urban agglomerations that a summit can get in a day trip from Boston, or an overnight stay from New York City, the mountain offers some of the best, and most easily accessible hiking and skiing in the region. 250,000 people are said to visit each year. Doing so is as easy as pulling into the parking lot, and hitting the lead head. There are warning signs, stories and even guides that you can hire, but most are happy to just go out for a walk and see what happens; ignorant of the weather, terrain and dangers. It is tempting to say that the government should step in, and demand permission, or better patrol the tracks, but it is also easy to conclude that if someone will embark on a mountain notorious for their death rate and extreme weather in flip flops, that they would find a way to die elsewhere if this hike was not available. Even the experienced are inclined to underestimate the mountain's risks. Dupuis says that Matrosova's gear was good, "But she didn't have a pillow." When the weather turned, which it's prone to do, she didn't have a shelter, she didn't have extra insulation, she didn't have a hiking buddy. With any of those things, let alone all three of them, Dupuis says they could probably have reached her in time. On Washington, there's a lack of preparation, not the mountain, that kills. <unk> WATCH: 109-MPH winds on Mount Washington Lift Man Off His Feet Mount Washington Observatory / YouTube Although it is mid-May, warmer, milder weather has not yet made it up to 6.288 metres (6.288 m) top of New Hampshire Mount Washington, as a pair of weather observers can attest. Mike Dorfman and Tom Padham defied the 109-mph gusts on top of a tower at Mount Washington Observatory to record hourly weather conditions. Dorfman wrote about the experience in a blog post and posted a video to agree to it. This is how Dorfman described the experience: "The Sherman Adams building has 3 foot thick concrete walls and 3 layers bulletproof glass windows. Even with this protection, the constant, dull roar of the wind is constantly present in the observatory's weather room. Going up to the tower to deice every hour is an adventure; the enclosed parapet-like tower roars like the sound of a jet engine as a plane takes off, and going out the upper door of the parachute is like opening the window on the rising jet." In the video published on Monday, the weather observer struggles to stay upright while the winds push him up on the snowy mountain. At one point he shoots himself into the howling wind and is short-lived airborne before tumbles to the ground and glides over the icy ground. The strong winds are something to behold, but they are nothing compared to the record 231-mph winds recorded on the mountain in 1934. Known for its extreme weather, the observatory says "winter is Mount Washington's most alluring season", as "the extreme conditions of the summit compete with those of Mount Everest and the polar regions." As Kate Matrosova stepped out of the car 90 minutes before sunrise, she could not have seen the summit of Mount Washington, 5,000 metres above in New Hampshire's White Mountain. It was 5 a.m., still dark and already cloudy on Sunday before Presidents' Day. The forecast was frightening, but it did not advise her: Matrosova was heading for the summit. Up there, it was minus 6 degrees C — cold according to the standards that apply to those living at sea level, but mildly according to the mountain’s measurements in winter. The wind at the top blew steadily, around 40 miles an hour. But in a place boasting about the worst weather on earth, it is not unusual — or even difficult. Advertisement Did the wind whip hard at the Appalachia parking lot on Route 2 in Randolph, N.H., where Matrosova's husband dropped her off? Get Metro Headlines in your inbox: The top 10 local news from Boston and around New England are delivered daily. Sign up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here If it did, it did not advise her. Layed in down and Gore-tex, armed with safety glasses to protect her face and heavy convulsions to attach to her high-tech boots, Matrosova had planned to hike up the mountain range from the north and down on the other side. One by one, she would climb the top of four mountains named after men whose memories the holiday also honors: Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Washington. Facebook Kate Matrosova. Bad weather was coming. But while forecasts warned of snowstorms in New Hampshire, the winds in the mountains were not predicted to be at their worst until later Sunday. Matrosova planned to hike down the south side of the range, past the Cloud Lakes, along the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail and out to the Mount Washington Cog Railway at 6:00 p.m. Her husband, Charlie Farhoodi, would wait. Advertisement In the parking lot, she scaled it almost 6-foot-all snowbank left by ploughs. Over a snowmobile track and a few steps up on the narrow path, a sign warns blunt hikers of the risk they face: Try this path only if you are in top physical condition, well dressed and wear extra clothes and food. Many have died above the timber limit of exposure. Turn back at the first sign of bad weather. Matrosova, 32, was healthy and strong and smart. A trader on BNP Paribas on Wall Street, she was also driven and determined. She had made some strenuous climbs before, and this was the holiday she had planned. And if Matrosova saw the sign at the headlight in the darkened darkness — if she read every single word before going out between the trees — it did not dissuade her either. Trouble in the mountains The call came over the radio in Sergeant Mark Ober's cruiser around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, and within moments he knew that the day had become fatal. A hiker was in trouble in the mountains, a state police clerk told Ober, a conservation officer for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. From the radio call, he found out Matrosova's name and her vital statistics. He now also had her husband's name and cell phone number. He knew where she was. Matrosova had pressed the button on a personal location beacon. It triggered an immediate warning at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Fla., where emergency satellite signals from all such units are monitored. Operators in Florida immediately called the telephone numbers associated with the lighthouse's registration: The first, to Matrosova's mobile phone, had bounced to voicemail. Farhoodi, waiting in his hotel room in Gorham, received the second call and called 112. Just a few minutes after Matrosova had pressed the button on her device, the details of her distress had reached Ober. He plugged in the GPS coordinates that the sender had given him in the laptop in his cruiser, and saw the location: south of the ridge between Mount Adams and Mount Madison, far above the tree line and the shelter from the wind it provides. Up there, the tree line is often the line between life and death. Then he checked the weather at the Mount Washington Observatory. Between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., the temperature at the top was 21 degrees below zero. The wind blew 77 miles per hour, and the wind cover was '67. In that wind and cold, frostbite develops on exposed skin in minutes. And it would just get colder. Ober knew this could be fatal. In dangerous conditions, you do not always try to save people. Risking the lives of dozens of rescue workers to save a person does not always make sense — a week or two earlier, conditions had been so dangerous, said Fish and Game Lieutenant Wayne Saunders, that a party could not be sent to save a woman who collapsed. The ones she had loaded her into a sleeping bag and dragged her back to safety. But Matrosova had no one with him. Ober called his fish and spawn colonel and described the situation and conditions — the decision to send a team in search of Matrosova belonged to the colonel. He decided they'd try to save her. And he called Farhoodi, a vice president of J.P. Morgan in New York. Farhoodi described Matrosova's mountaineering experience — extensive, he said — as well as her determination and her itinerary. Under better conditions, her plan could have been feasible if it was ambitious within the timescales. But weather is all in the whites. Facebook Kate Matrosova and her husband Charlie Farhoodi. “It gave me a break,” said Ober. “No one tries to at this time of year, under those conditions. Certainly [not] alone.” She had known the forecast, Ober said, but forged ahead. — This was her plan. She wanted to do it. The weather didn’t seem to scare her much.” If she activated her emergency beacon, Farhoodi told Ober, it was because she was in real trouble. Ober told Farhoodi what the rescuers were against. Ober started raising the only ones who could save her life. His first call went to the conservation officers who are part of Fish and Park's advanced search and rescue team – world-class climbers performing daring saves above the tree line. Then he called Rick Wilcox, the chairman of the Mountain Rescue Service. If anyone could save Matrosova, it was Wilcox's team. “They are the cream of the crop,” said Ober. "They are the guys who will go up there and do things that normal people won't come, when it comes to saving a life." Collecting a rescue squad Steve Larson's phone rang a little after 5:00 p.m. on the line when he picked up at his home in the Eaton Center, N.H., was a recorded alert ranger the volunteer members of the Mountain Rescue Service. The recording didn't have much information, but it got enough. Larson started to work to get his equipment together. The conversation did not come as a shock to Larson, a soft-spoken, modest 58-year-old with a kind of wilesy strength that only benefited from a life that lived outdoors. “When you have holiday week and bad weather, it is almost a given that this should happen,” he said. After equipping up, it took him 20 minutes to drive to North Conway to face the other three rescue troops responding to the call. They gathered in Wilcox's store, International Mountain Equipment, and went through their plan, distributing radios and distributing other team equipment. By then, a second place from the emergency beacon had bounced from the satellite to Florida — this under the tree line, on the north side of the mountain. The other lighthouse came as good news, Larson said. If Matrosova still had sense of her, she would do anything to get to that line — it was her best chance of survival. Where the trees give way to open rocky terrain, there is no protection from the punitive wind. On Monday morning, gusts would register for more than 140 miles per hour. Almost nothing can live up there under such conditions. But beneath the tree line the wind howls, but does not bite so hard. Someone with the right equipment and some luck could dig a shelter in chest depth snow and hunk down to the morning. If Matrosova had made it down to the trees, as the second beacon site indicated, chances were that the rescue workers would reach her alive surprisingly good. So sometime around 7, not far behind a team of three conservation officers and with the temperature hovering around 30-under on top, the four men had tangled up the Valley Way trail Matrosova had wandered 14 hours earlier. Another four-man land rescue team would follow later. “My first thought was, that it was really inappropriate for someone to be up there,” said Max Lurie, 28, who responded to the second mountain rescue call and began his ascent around 10:30 a.m. Sunday evening. — It was cold — one of the coldest nights of the year — and the wind howled, Lurie said. “I don’t go up there, when there are conditions like these. Larson could only recall half a dozen times, as it had been this bad. The valley road trail passed relatively quickly. It was cold, but with good gear and no wind it was not unmanageable. And the path was packed down from hikers travelling the same way. However, as they approached the site of Matrosova’s lighthouse reading, the trek turned into a bug. Of the packed track, the men forced their way through snow reaching their breasts despite their snowshoes and hacking their way through the brush. In the cold darkness, their headlights oozed up above the snow. Larson's spirits sank. Even if Matrosova had fought her way back to the tree line, how could she have gone through this? It took some of the world’s best mountaineers two hours to travel a quarter mile in this terrain. Why would she have abandoned the relatively easy track? “It just didn’t feel right for me,” Larson said. “She had no reason to be there.” It was after midnight when they arrived at the coordinates the emergency beacon had described. It was 35 below zero. There was no sign of Matrosova. By then, a third four - read had arrived — this far south, on the other side of the peaks. Suddenly, what had been the calculated movements of someone struggling for her life now seemed to be the meaningless production of a broken machine. Exhausted, the team turned around. At 3 a.m., they passed the warning sign, across the snowmobile drive, across the bank and into the parking lot. Paul Hayes for The Boston Globe Kate Matrosova began her hike on the Valley Way trail, intending to make a hike in the White Mountains in honor of President Day. Scattered signs On Monday morning there were 11 readings from the lighthouse, some overlapping and others far away. But there were also more people ready to search. A team from Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue, another group of volunteers in the area, was sent to the original lighthouse site, near the Star Lake trail between Mount Madison and Mount Adams, south of the mountain line between the peaks. Mike Pelchat, an employee of a park working as a rescue worker, said he received a call about being on standby Sunday night. He put a pack together and was on the trail around 9:00 a.m. Monday. With 40-pound packs, the team went up the mountain. ‘I’m an optimist,’ said Pelchat, 60, who lives in Gorham in the shadow of the mountains. “Over more than 30-odd years, I’ve seen some amazing feats of survival. People can survive if they can get out of that wind.” But on Monday morning, that wind gushed up to 100 miles an hour. The Androscoggin Valley team members were thrown off the trail as toddlers who crashed on a playground. They often looked at each other. In the wild wind, with equipment covering every centimeter of skin, it meant hushing tightly and shouting their loudest sound. At the top of the Valley Way trail, they stayed at Madison Spring Hut — a small shelter closed for winter but extensive enough to briefly block the wind. Up above the ridge there was no such shelter. The snow that blows can eradicate any trace that may have existed. The cold air and the brutal wind on the ridge are what makes these mountains a training ground for the highest peaks in the world. “A lot of people like the difficult weather,” Pelchat said. “That’s how they test and train for the higher mountains around the world. But Sunday, he knew, had become colder and colder as the hours went by. The wind had pushed harder and harder. What had been a mild Sunday morning gave way to hell: According to Weather Now, a website tracking weather stations around the world, there was a moment Monday morning when the summit of Mount Washington was the second-coldly measured place on Earth, the Conway Daily Sun reported. The first was a weather station at the South Pole. “We thought it would get grim,” Pelchat said. “We were preparing for what we could find.” It took almost five hours to reach the place that the first lighthouse – and three others then – had come from. The 11 rescuers combed the coordinates and duplicated them, searching the area. About 2 p.m., a few hundred feet off the trail, Pelchat saw someone down on the ground. Maybe one of the team had fallen over again, he thought. But Kate Matrosova didn't move, or staggered her feet. Her pack was off, and her face was scraped and cut. The headlight was still in place. “It looked like she was blown off the Star Lake trail,” Pelchat said. “A great gust of wind picked her up and blew her off the track.” She died where the wind left her. Matt Bowman/AVSAR An Androscoggin Valley search and rescue teams and rescue teams searched for Matrosova. Her body was found 22 1/2 hours after the distress call. Matrosova followed her steps along with the lighthouse that she hoped would save her life, and took with her another GPS device that day—one that guided her along snow-covered paths and tracked her progress. So after rescue workers carried Matrosova's body down the cold mountain to the hearse waiting in the parking lot below, conservation officers could piece her way together. She first turned on the device when she arrived at the tree line, and she followed the Appalachian Trail directly to the top of Mount Madison, 5,367 feet above sea level. She followed the track back down and stopped at Madison Spring Hut to take a picture of herself, said Saunders, the fish and the game lieutenant. She looked strong and healthy. But she was already behind schedule she had set. With the fearsome wind at her back, she headed south along the Star Lake Trail and followed it to the top of Mount Adams — 5,794 meters. She certainly knew then that she would never be able to complete the route she had planned: Her GPS tracker shows her turning back, again following her steps along the Star Lake Trail, heading towards the hut and tree line below. But if a tailwind pushed her up the mountain, a headwind held her there. In the early afternoon, the gusts were already at the top 100 miles per hour. Also along the south side of the ridge, the full force of the wind attacked Matrosova. Turning back was the right decision, but it was too late. At 3:30 p.m., she was away from the track, in the lonely place where Mike Pelchat would find his body 221⁄2 hours later. Alone a treacherous mile above the world, she pressed the button on her location beacon. Paul Hayes for The Boston Globe Signs at the beginning of the trail warns potential hikers of the dangers and lack of protection ahead. No one will know how long she survived. Some take her headlights as proof that she held out at least until dark; others are not so sure about it. If she had turned her cell phone on, Ober said, she might have been surprised to find that she could reach 911. But she didn't. “It was neglectful of her to be up there,” Lurie said. The conditions overnight were among the worst he had seen, he said. Although she was not a beginner — people tie on these mountains in rubber boots and jeans — the most real tests of skill out here are not physical. “Her decision clearly speaks to her inexperience,” Lurie said. But her route, Saunders said, “shows that she was thinking all the time.” She interrupted her trek and tried to get back to safety. “She wasn’t wandering around the mountain,” said Saunders. In the end, she advised against her goal and tried to strategically and systematically save her own life. “She was the victim of a combination of bad judgment and bad luck,” Larson said. But “people make worse mistakes in judgment all the time” and do not lose their lives. What haunts Larson is how close he came in his attempt to save her. “A lesson in all this, for all this whiz-bang technology, it’s obviously not spot-on,” Larson said. If his group of rescue workers had had only one true set of coordinates for her place — had they not spent hours bushwhacking through chest-deep snow to a remote place she had never been — they may have reached her 14 hours earlier than Pelchat did. Perhaps, he said, they would have found her: Frostbitten. Frigid. Alive. But her signal was rated for 20-under, Saunders said. The air was much colder. And mountain shadows, he said, can sometimes fool even modern technology. “Maybe she relied a little too much on the technique,” Pelchat said. “She might have thought she could turn around. But the temperatures and the wind got the upper hand over her.” The weather was not the only thing that got the upper hand over her, of course. "When you're targeted, it makes you successful in the business world," Pelchat said. “It can also put your blinkers on.” The one-minded determination that drives people to climb mountains in the first place is the same quality that can domesticate them. And although the ridge line between these mountains is narrow, it is not as narrow as the line between pushing too hard and not pressing hard enough. Had she turned around earlier and made for the line where the wind gives way to the forest, Kate Matrosova may have walked away from the mountain cold and disappointed and alive. But she didn't. During winter in the whites, the narrowest line is the one between life and death. Paul Hayes for the Boston Globe Nestor Ramos can be reached at nestor.ramos@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @NestorARAMOs ................................