A hypothermic hiker had to be rescued by helicopter from New Hampshire's White Mountains on Thursday after his limbs became frozen and he could no longer move through the deep snow.
The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department said they were alerted to a hiker in distress just below the summit of Little Haystack Mountain on Franconia Ridge at 8:15 a.m. Thursday. The solo hiker had called 911 and reported that his limbs were frozen, he was hypothermic and could no longer move through the several feet of snow.
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Temperatures at the time were in the 20s, with winds blowing above 30 mph, clouds and intermittent snow squalls.
Coordinates placed the hiker about 1,000 feet off trail at about 4,300 feet in elevation. Fish and Game conservation officers and volunteers with the Pemi Valley Search and Rescue Team responded and began climbing up the Falling Waters Trail around 10 a.m.
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A call was also made to the Army National Guard in hopes that an airlift could be performed if the weather was good enough. But when they arrived in the area at 10:45 a.m. the cloud cover only allowed them to get within a quarter of a mile of the hiker before they had to turn back due to poor visibility. They landed at the nearby Cannon Mountain Ski Area to wait for a safer window.
It took rescuers over an hour to cover the 1,000 feet of bushwhacking from Falling Waters Trail to where the hiker was located, and they finally reached him around 1 p.m. At this point, the hiker was extremely hypothermic and he was given warm clothing and fluids and placed in a type of emergency sleeping bag for shelter.
Around 3 p.m., the clouds had lifted enough for the National Guard to return to the area, and by 3:15 they had lifted him into the helicopter and were able to transport him to Littleton Regional Healthcare before 3:30 p.m. Fish and Game officials said the helicopter rescue saved them from a multiple hour carry out through extremely difficult terrain.
The hiker was identified by Fish and Game officials as 28-year-old Patrick Bittman, of Portland, Maine. He had departed sometime the previous evening so he could watch the sunrise from Mount Lafayette. But once he got near the summit of Little Haystack Mountain, he encountered deep, blowing snow and decided to come back down. But he couldn't find the trail as he descended and wound up heading into the Dry Brook drainage before eventually calling for help.
No update on Bittman's condition was released.
