In 2015, as David and I had started ascending the side of Mt. Clay, the exhaustion had hit me really hard and discouragement had set in. This year, our Presidential Traverse was an entirely different story.

My muscles were definitely moving a little slowly, but both David and I were easily powering around Clay. When we reached the base of the Mt. Washington climb, we both looked up at the summit ahead and groaned. The top was so close, yet so far.

Instead of following the Gulfside Trail that walks right along the edge of the Great Gulf, we hopped the cog railway and made our own trail; it gave us a little more protection from the wind that was hammering us from the side and threatening to blow us onto the ground when it gusted up.

On April 6, 2015, around 11:15PM, David Savoie and I stumbled into the AMC Highland Center in Crawford Notch, in the middle of a snowstorm. We were out of food, out of water, and our feet were screaming in pain. We both agreed that we would never do the Presidential Traverse again.

Less than a year later, at 3:45 am on February 8th, 2016, we both climbed out of David’s VW Jetta at the Appalachia trailhead on the Northern end of the Presidential range. Despite all the suffering of 2015’s attempt, David and I were back for another attempt.

Jason’s watch started beeping at 5am, and I rolled over in my sleeping bag.

“Rise and shine,” he said wearily. I groaned in reply. I hadn’t slept well, tossing and turning the entire night during my light sleep in single digit temperatures.

We sat there for half a minute, then Jason said, “Wake up at 6? There’s something about waking up in the dark and prepping under headlamps that isn’t appealing in the least.”

“Yup, sounds good to me,” I replied, and rolled back over.