Great Outdoors: Exeter High School club summits Mount Washington with 'resilience and grit'

EXETER — It was one of his own high school teachers in Maine that first sparked Rick Charity’s love of hiking and rock climbing.

He took a leadership class with that teacher, Eric Brown, which culminated with an overnight trip to Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine.

“That was a pretty formative experience for me to overcome my own fears and anxieties on a mountain of that size and that really jump-started my passion for being in the outdoors more,” recalled Charity, a counselor at Exeter High School, who has been the adviser for EHS’s outing club for the past two years.

A former backcountry guide, Charity led a group of seven students to the summit of Mount Washington on March 18, a year after they had to turn back because of dangerous weather conditions. He led three students the weekend prior.

On St. Patrick’s Day weekend, the students were met with a bluebird sky and weather so mild at the bottom that Breck Cox, a senior from Newfields, was able to wear a T-shirt for much of the climb up, a huge shift from last year when they made it to Lion Head and had to turn back.

“There’s a lot of elevation gain in that last mile, it’s definitely pretty grueling,” Cox said. “Turning around was the right choice, it would have been unsafe to push any further. It was definitely a little defeating.”

'Everyday heroes': Exeter police honor Jeff Neil for stopping erratic airline passenger

Fellow Newfields senior Teagan Hayward was also along for the attempt last year. “There was too much fog, we couldn’t even see the summit,” Hayward said.

Hayward added it was disappointing, “For sure, you want to be able to say, 'I got to the summit.'”

Before this winter hike, the students hiked at Pawtuckaway State Park, ice climbed at Cathedral Ledge in North Conway and got a comprehensive education about winter hiking from Charity. The advisor still has the winter climbing gear he used when he had his own guide service and lent it to students for the hike. In addition to teaching them how to use equipment, he prepared students for the mental challenges of the climb. Take it one section at a time. There are life lessons in climbing.

“It’s resilience and grit and watching people work together and work through things that are difficult,” he said. “It’s really hard to mimic what you can get in the outdoors.”

More local news: Newfields Select Board member resigns, accuses chair Michael Sununu of ‘intimidation’

The students met at Exeter High School at 4:30 a.m. and reached the summit at about 1:20 p.m.

“It’s very strenuous,” Charity said. “We got incredibly lucky with conditions. In the winter, most days are going to be days with poor weather conditions and approaching hurricane-force winds.”

Cox, who also skis, climbs, surfs, and mountain bikes, was drawn to join the club his junior year as activities reopened following the pandemic. As for what he enjoys the most, Cox offers, “Really just the people and the feeling after you make it all the way back to the cars, it’s just unbeatable.”

Hiking in the winter is a measured pursuit. “Because of the snow, it slows you down and you’re definitely carrying some more weight with all the gear and getting used to maneuvering on the snow,” Cox said.

But along the way, memories were made, like the photo Cox took at Lion Head with a bright blue sky and stark white summit in the background. “That was probably my favorite moment of the hike,” he said.

And challenges were overcome by the hikers. “It was pretty gnarly in some parts,” Cox said. “I would say the most challenging was probably the middle third of the hike, which is just really steep. In my head, I was like, I need to put one foot in front of the other and I’ll get to the top.”

Hayward, who has scoliosis, had to push through some extreme pain on the hike, and was thankful for Charity’s help.

“When my back was really bad, he took my bag, just so I could give my back a break. Mine was very heavy, I could not imagine how hard that was, but he did it,” Hayward said.

More: Flamingos Coffee Bar, home of the Taylor Swift Latte flight, coming to Exeter

Hayward felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment when they reached the summit. “My back began to flare up maybe a mile before the summit. It got really bad,” Hayward said. “Once we got to the summit I just collapsed, but in a good way.”

Hayward continued, “The whole thing is a bit of a fever dream, it’s a little surreal, and I honestly do not know what pushed me to get to the top. At a certain point, you didn’t want to be the person who got 100 feet from the top or 500 feet, like the last attempt. I wanted to redeem myself.”

The summit was unexpected. “It was beautiful,” Hayward said. “Honestly, I did not know what the view from Mount Washington was like; you can see so many mountains around you.”

Other hikers at the top were astounded that a high school group had summited Mount Washington, but for the students, there was another feeling.

“I think everybody kind of remembered we had to go back down,” Cox said, adding they worked together to get down, even rappelling down steep sections with Charity’s help.

The group was back in Exeter by 9 p.m. with a sense of achievement and an eagerness for a good night’s sleep. “The next day I just did not do anything,” Cox said.

Cox is preparing to attend St. Lawrence University to study conservation biology and says he plans to join their outing club. “I think the outing club has really taught me how uniting experiences can be,” he said. “It’s really awesome that Mr. Charity takes time out of his weekends to allow us to do this.”

Hayward, who is planning to go to school in Colorado, credits the club with helping them become more outdoorsy. “I think I’ll keep doing hikes and definitely keep challenging myself,” Hayward said.

As for what’s next for the outing club, the students had some ideas. “Some of them were joking as they were going down how cool it would be to do a Himalayan trek into Tibet,” Charity said, adding a backpacking trip in the White Mountains, is a more realistic potential.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Exeter High School outing club summits Mount Washington