Copyright The Boston Globe
Twenty hikers were rescued from Mount Washington in New Hampshire on Saturday, according to Andrew Vilaine, the assistant general manager at The Mount Washington Cog Railway. Vilaine said that while operating the train to the mountain’s summit, he and other Cog Railway employees identified several groups of hikers that required assistance. “Many had poor choice of clothing, including non-waterproof layers and sneakers,” Vilaine said, and were beginning to show signs of hypothermia. On the Cog Railway’s website, visitors are encouraged to “dress appropriately with warm clothing and sturdy footwear at any time of the year.” On Saturday, the climate at the summit of the mountain had reached the single digits, Vilaine said. The summit of Mount Washington typically experiences much different weather than that at the base of the mountain, and “hurricane-force wind gusts occur on the summit an average of 110 days per year,” according to the Cog Railway’s website. Advertisement After assessing their conditions, Vilaine said the affected hikers were loaded onto the railway’s trains to travel back to the mountain’s base. “Several were placed in the locomotive cabs with the heat on full blast so they could start to reverse the effects of hypothermia,” he said. “Had we not been able to assist the hikers with the one way ride, there is little doubt in my mind that several more complex rescue efforts may have been needed to be undertaken,” Vilaine said. Katie Cressman can be reached at katherine.cressman@globe.com.
