6 Feet Under: How Our Adirondack Hike Turned Deadly Serious

I reluctantly hopped back into the hole (something you never want to do voluntarily) and spent maybe 15 minutes digging to retrieve her snowshoe. The confined space made it challenging. Every time I moved some snow, more snow would tumble in. As I worked, I felt a second hole open up under my left snowshoe. I looked down into pitch black. Big yikes.

But we couldn’t leave essential gear behind. We were still several miles from the trailhead, and steep ones.

My oversized clumsy mittens came to the rescue. Using them like flippers, I was able to move a lot of snow from where the snowshoe was and dump it into the second trap. This is surprisingly tiring work. It’s light fluffy snow but, as you move it, fresh powder immediately replaces what you’ve just moved. It feels endless. Finally, though, I was able to pull out the buried snowshoe.

After getting everything back, we started moving again.

Immediately, I fell into a second spruce trap.

I managed to extract myself, but climbing out of a trap is draining, especially when you’re already tired. This second effort took a toll.

Lost in the White

We tried to retrace our steps to find solid ground, but 40 minutes had passed and the wind had largely drifted snow over our earlier tracks. Winter conditions in the Adirondacks can change rapidly, and our path was disappearing before our eyes.

Then I fell into spruce trap number three. Yep. Third one. According to my partner who was hiking behind me, I just went straight down, vanishing into the pit. By this point, I was genuinely concerned. The physical exertion of repeatedly escaping these traps is substantial, and each one carried the risk of injury or worse.

Again, I managed to free myself and, very fortunately, that was the end of the drama. We reconnected with the main trail and made our way off the mountain without further incident.

The Deceptive Wilderness

This was all very humbling. What we had mistaken for small fir saplings were actually the tops of adolescent trees poking through the deep snowpack. There must have been 8-12 feet of powder snow in that area.

This realization put our experience into perspective. We hadn’t just stepped off a trail—we had been walking across the canopy of a buried forest, with dangerous voids lurking beneath every step.

What We SHOULD Have Done

Looking back, we made several errors. If you’re planning winter hikes in the Adirondacks (or anywhere with similar conditions), here’s what we learned:

1. Never bushwhack in the Adirondacks during winter. Just don’t. The established trails are challenging enough, but the herd paths can be treacherous. The amount of snow accumulation creates dangerous conditions that aren’t immediately apparent, and standard navigational markers may be obscured.
2. If you ever step off a trail or herd path, immediately retrace your steps. The moment you realize you’re no longer on solid ground or an established path, turn around and go back to the last place you felt safe. Don’t try to forge ahead or find an alternative route. Return to known territory first, then reassess.
3. Respect trail markers and signals. That log across the path wasn’t placed there randomly. Other hikers were trying to communicate something important. When you see these signals, heed them.
4. Understand the terrain beneath the snow. What looks like a flat field of snow could be concealing dramatically different terrain underneath. Those “small trees” might be the tops of much larger ones, with dangerous voids around their trunks.
5. Always hike with a partner in winter conditions. Had either of us been alone, this story might have had a very different ending. Having someone to help in an emergency proved invaluable. We got this part right, phew!