Fatal Weather of a Killer Mountain : Geography: Because of its accessibility, Mt. Washington is often underestimated for destructive potential of its changeable conditions.

Stephen Sardella and two friends began to hike up this pretty New England mountain on a gentle fall afternoon. A few hours later they were lost, stumbling in an arctic blizzard, facing a frigid death.

They were in the fickle grip of Mt. Washington, a place with weather so quickly fearsome that by some counts it has claimed more lives than any mountain in North America.

“It got worse by the minute. That was the freaky thing. The snowflakes got bigger and the winds got worse. The visibility . . . I couldn’t see my hand,” the 21-year-old college student said.

“We found a sign (for a hut) but we took about 15 or 20 steps in the direction, and we couldn’t find the hut. We looked back and couldn’t see the sign. We couldn’t see our footprints--they disappeared in seconds. We ran back to the sign and we couldn’t find it. We were just lost.”

The winds that shrieked of danger to Sardella have brought that message to many others before. Mt. Washington, beckoning in its come-hither proximity and alluring in its spectacular fall clothes, is a killer mountain.

“It’s dangerous. It’s one of the most dangerous in the world,” said Rossi Moreau, 43, an experienced mountain climber who lives nearby.

Fatality Toll

Mt. Washington and its nearby slopes have claimed at least 103 lives in 140 years, more than on any peak on the continent, according to the Appalachian Mountain Club. Mt. McKinley in Alaska, three times higher, has claimed 60 climbers. Mt. Everest in the Himalayas, the highest in the world, 82 by most accounts.

This unpretentious mountain 170 miles from Boston is insidious. It is a relatively low, hikeable mountain. But it has the fiercest winds recorded anywhere, and a quick-change cap of snow and fog that can trap the unsuspecting.

“It comes up fast,” said Ken Harcourt, a meteorologist at the private observatory at the top of Mt. Washington. “Up here the clouds can be coming in at 80 m.p.h. We are stuck up in the mean airflow without any protection.”

On nice summer days, Mt. Washington wears the benign face of a tourist stop, complete with a gift shop at the top that sells hot dogs and T-shirts. A quarter-million people visit each year. Most drive up or take the 120-year-old cog railway.

About 60,000 hike the rocky trails that wend up the mountainside. The steeper cliffs beckon mountain climbers who scale the sheer walls with ropes and crampons.

All are at the mercy of weather that can change seemingly in a lightning flash.

The T-shirts read: “I survived the worst weather in the world.” That claim comes from the way the wind overcomes the mountain. Though it is the highest peak in the Northeast, Mt. Washington is part of the old, worn Appalachians and tops out at just 6,288 feet. It would be a foothill to some of the Rockies.

Wind Increases

But it is the first big obstacle to greet winds that sweep from Canada and the West. Those winds dip into the Connecticut River Valley, and then meet the western base of Mt. Washington. As the upper clouds drag their skirts over the summit, the bottom air is forced up faster and faster to clear the peak. A breeze of 20 m.p.h. at the base of the mountain is often 100 m.p.h. as it whips over the top.

As it rises, the air cools and often reaches the dew point, so a sunny day on the slopes may often be fog-shrouded and snowy at the top.

“Folks come up here in a temperate zone and they want to climb the mountain. They don’t realize they are climbing into (the equivalent of) Labrador,” Moreau said.

The spectacular maples at the base give way to evergreens and then short fir thickets, before disappearing at the tree line at only 4,500 feet. Above that is a boulder-strewn lunar terrain that supports only lichen, moss and alpine vegetation.

On April 12, 1934, weather observer Salvatore Pagliuca found the wind gauge whirling faster than he could recall. “I took the stop watch and started timing gusts myself,” he later entered in the log. “Yes, 229 m.p.h. once, twice, then a lull, then another gust . . . (I) extrapolated my calibration and read 231 m.p.h. Will they believe it?”

It still stands as a record, even at a place routinely wicked and cold. The winds here exceed 75 m.p.h.--hurricane force--an average of three days a week. It is below zero degrees 20 percent of the time. Then there’s the wind chill factor.

Those who work here--the weather observers and television relay station crew year-round, and state park rangers in the summer--often must take polar precautions. They move up the mountain on rugged snow-cats, and link themselves with safety lines when they must venture out in a blizzard.

“It’s good to respect this mountain,” Harcourt said. “About the maximum we will go out in is 120 to 130 m.p.h. At some point, depending on the size of your pack and your clothing, you will be flying.”

Experienced mountain climbers come to Mt. Washington to train. “If you can go up and spend a winter night on Mt. Washington, you are ready for Mt. McKinley,” said Rick Wilcox, a climbing instructor in North Conway, N.H.

Lost in Storm

Some get in trouble. Hugh Herr and Jeffrey Batzer started an ascent to the summit in January, 1982, and found themselves disoriented in a snowstorm. Both were experienced, skillful climbers, but they were trapped for three days on the mountain as the wind chill dropped to 100 degrees below zero.

They managed to reach the tree line, but had to stop there, huddled under spruce boughs. They cradled together and held each other’s feet to try to stop the spread of frozen flesh.

They were lucky: a snowshoeing ranger found them. Both of Herr’s feet were amputated, Batzer lost parts of a leg, foot and hand. One of the search party was less lucky: Albert Dow was killed by an avalanche as he skied a slope looking for the men.

“It was horrible. I’m still dealing with it,” said Herr, now 24, finishing college in Millersville, Pa. The young man has returned to mountain climbing--with prostheses--and has climbed some of the toughest mountains in the country. But he has not returned to Mt. Washington.