The sign states it pretty plainly: STOP – The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Many have died there from exposure. Even in the summer, turn back now if the weather is bad.

If you have done any hiking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, especially the Presidential Range, where 4,000- and 5,000-foot peaks dominate, along with Mt. Washington at 6,288 feet, you have undoubtedly seen this warning.

I’ve seen it twice, the first time when ascending Mt. Eisenhower in May, and most recently when hiking toward the summit of Mt. Madison on July 19. So I should have been a little wiser on the Madison climb, especially having encountered a wind chill factor of 15 degrees atop Eisenhower on May 24.

But I wasn’t. Part of the reason, I believe is hubris. Yes, the weather may be bad, but I’m in pretty good shape, and they probably just put that up [the sign] to give people a little scare.

And then, even though they do mention summer in the warning, I’m thinking but wait a minute, it’s the 19th of July. How bad can it be?

As I was to find out perhaps no more than 20 minutes after passing a group of hikers who were on their way down as I was going up – very!

It had started to rain lightly by the time I reached the peak.  Moments later as I began my way down, the temperature had dropped, the wind had increased sharply and the light rain had turned into a downpour.  With hail stones prickling my skin and visibility reduced to about 20 feet I finally made one good decision, crawling into a fetal position and sheltering as best I could behind one of the nearby boulders.

It would be a good 45 minutes before the wind (reportedly close to 60 mph) and rain abated and a patch of blue broke through the clouds. By then I was thoroughly drenched and most of my fingers had turned white, but I was able to make my way back to the Madison Hut without incident and, after drying out, resumed my descent down the Valley Way path.

I described my adventure to the New Hampshire friends with whom I was staying that evening. After noting the various things I had done wrong on this hike one of them turned to me finally and said with her typical tone of British understatement, “Yes, people tend to underestimate our mountains.”

I assured her that that was something I would never do again.