Were you here at Weill Cornell med school, you’d probably be hearing rumors flying around about the snowshoe hike that went down this weekend. As one of the nine hikers, let me tell you our story.

It started with our class’s annual ski trip up to Vermont. Our second year pro outdoorsman organized an intense snowshoe hike up Camels Hump, a nearby and relatively untamed mountain. It’d be a 5.8 mile loop with 2500 ft ascension. Last year it took them 4.5 hours, 10 am-2:30 pm, and they even dropped by the Ben & Jerry’s factory on the way back. Nice. I was excited to try snowshoeing, and obviously I was excited for the photo ops.

At 8 am, we geared up, rented snowshoes, and drove to the trailhead. We were delayed by half an hour when we got caught in a snowdrift when trying to turn around a long van, but meh, details. By 11, our boots were strapped in, and we happily started into the woods.

Snowshoes are nifty! It doesn’t matter how much powder there is. Just pack down about a foot and it’s like you’re floating! So, we walked merrily through the snowy woods and reveled in the peaceful wilderness. After a month of med school surrounded by all these rectangular skyscrapers and dirty snow that melts way too fast in NYC, it was a much needed escape.

We’ve been learning about the lungs and have heard endlessly about V/Q mismatch, or ventilation-perfusion mismatch. Well, on this hike, we had a bit of timing-pacing mismatch and a few equipment malfunctions, so we found ourselves a bit behind schedule. 3.5 hours in and just halfway up? Oops. Still, we made the judgment call that the fastest way through was up over the summit and down the straight path back. Let’s goooo!!

All this time I had my ski poles strapped on my back and was shooting freely, but this was when the going started getting tough. Snowshoes have crampons and pivoting toes to enable you to dig and climb up some pretty steep slopes, but some of these inclines were ridiculous! Check out the angle at his foot there. Yeah…

As we ascended, the woods got wilder and the snow got thicker. When I was leading the line, I had compress the fresh snow down more than 2 feet in some spots. Three times, we broke over the tree line only to plunge right back into the deep. We were also starting to get worried, because by 4 pm we still had not summited yet. The 5:30 sunset loomed overhead.

The forest up there was alien. In other places like cities or normal forests, you only see snow piling onto the tops of tree branches. However, here the wind picked up the snow coated the branches all around. Angular trees morphed into tall multilobular snowmen that shielded us from the wind. The falling snow was piling up on the ground and everywhere else in earnest, and the gentle flurries of powder transformed the landscape in a different sense.

It was quiet. So quiet. Other than the gentle crunch of snow underneath my snowshoes, I heard nothing else. Nothing resonated up there; instead, all sounds were instantly consumed by the snow. My friends were not more than 20 paces behind me, but as soon as I turned the corner I couldn’t hear them anymore. It was so, so quiet.

Hiking is a great workout and yields awesome photos, but I love it for moments like this. The white trees. The muffled silence. The cold clean air. I couldn’t help but to just say, “wow.”

But reality of our timing was catching up with us. When we cleared the last tree line, we weren’t greeted by breaking sunlight and a spectacular aerial view. We were met by an exposed, impassable stone peak.

It was 5 pm, and the illumination from behind the snow-laden sky was quickly fading. Unprotected, we were immediately battered by the icy snow crystals immediately carried by the wind that picks up during the rapid changes of sunset. We instantly became aware of the sub-zero temperature. If there’s something that you’re not supposed to do during the winter, it’s get stuck on top of a mountain without shelter.

At this point, I stowed my camera. All hike long, the viewfinder was filling with snow, the screen icing over, and the dials freezing solid, but I could just shoot by instinct. However, the summit was too much for my fingers, and this was the last one I managed.

We battled over some rocks and tried to find the straight path back to the van, but the snow was untamed on the other side. It was unwise trying to plow through not 1, not 2, but 4 feet of fresh snow, so we decided to turn back and retrace the long way down. (By the way, always have an emergency plan in place when hiking. Our non-hiking friends were instructed to call in a rescue team if we didn’t make contact by a certain time. We called in to say we’d be late, pulled out our flashlights, bundled up, then started down…)

So for 4 hours, in darkness, we trudged down the hill in tight formation. Those steep inclines became chutes that we slid down on snowshoes and behinds. We called out hazards like dark branches in our path, snow bombs hanging above, drop-offs to the sides. I took the end of the line, following the shuffles and the lights of my friends below me. If the white forest feels mystical, the dark white forest feels eerie. A couple times, I became acutely aware that I was last in line and turned around in a panic, but it was just silence and darkness breathing down my neck.

We made it back to the van at 10 pm. We arrived at the lodge at 11:30 pm and were greeted by our worried, relieved, then cheering classmates. We, the the intrepid hikers, who disappeared into the mountains for eleven hours (five hours overdue), had finally returned. And golly, did we have a story to tell.

Yeah, I won’t deny that the hike was tough, especially towards the end. Usually I tell people that my camera and I have seen worse (thunderstorms, diving into the ocean, etc.), but this time, we truly set a new Bar for intensity, for absurdity, for utter mystical beauty.

Shoutouts to the summit team, especially our fearless leader. I’m already looking forward to the next adventure.