The adventure started at 3:00 in the morning Sunday with my alarm sounding after a brief several hours of sleep. After being wished a “good night” by the clerk at Cumberland Farms much to the amusement of Aaron and myself, we arrived at the Student Union meeting Robin, Mike and Seth at 4:00AM. The five of us then set out on what was supposed to be a 3-3.5 hour journey to the Appalachia parking lot for a hike up Mt. Adams with Mt. Madison being a backup if conditions were bad. After smooth sailing for most of the trip up Rte. 91 it began to snow. This of course slowed progress greatly, but having woken up in the middle of the night we were not about to let a little snow deter us. However, Robin’s 1986 Honda Accord was not built to travel well on snow especially with four guys crammed into it. After leaving 91 and being passed numerous times by the natives in 4-wheel drive vehicles, Robin’s car finally came to a sliding halt part way up a large hill. The result was everyone but Robin jumping behind the car to add a little muscle by pushing. Given the addition of some brute force the car easily made it up this obstacle and soon we were on our way again. However, after a few minutes, we came once again to another sizable hill, this one being an ominous looking down hill with a sharp curve at the bottom. Creeping downhill, we all came to the realization that despite Robin’s best efforts at steering, the car simply was not going to turn on the snow. The next few seconds were in slow motion as the car slid off the road and came to a rest inches away from a head on collision with a sign that served to warn of the curve. After a brief calming release of laughter we got moving once again, and with no more disasters arrived at the trailhead after a drive that ended up being much longer than any of us had anticipated.

After gearing up we set off in snowshoes toward Madison Springs Hut having concluding that given the late start, weather and moderate avalanche danger that a summit of Adams was completely out of the question. The trek proceeded smoothly through an icy snowfall that Robin described as looking like cornbread when it was on the ground. As we gained elevation and the slope and amount of snow on the ground increased, Robin described how the conditions were ripe for an avalanche. She thankfully reassured us that trees usually do a good job at offering avalanche cover. Soon after we began to see the trees get smaller, the sure sign that we were approaching tree line.

A few minutes later we emerged from the trees and into winds in excess of 50 MPH and low visibility, to the point where we could not see Mt. Madison who’s summit was a mere 20 minutes away in good weather. Following the mandatory photo stop at Madison Springs Hut we set off for what would be an uneventful jaunt down to the car. By this time the roads fortunately had been plowed and we arrived back at UMass in far less time than it had taken us only hours ago.