WASHINGTON, Feb 6, (AP):  The two friends had hiked New Hampshire's challenging Mount Washington trail a month ago. They returned and did it again Sunday after trekking through neighboring peaks in the White Mountains. Both veteran hikers, the women were an hour behind schedule on their descent and losing daylight, but they had warm clothing, headlamps and other gear.

Then the wind kicked in. The temperature dropped. They were in waist-deep snow and whiteout conditions. They were lost on the tallest mountain in the Northeast, known for its extreme, changeable weather. "That snow has nothing to stick to,” said Amy Cotter, a weather observer and education specialist with the Mount Washington Observatory at the peak at 6,288 feet (1,916 meters). "That snow gets whipped up very easily.”

One of Kathyrn McKee's snowshoes became stuck in a "spruce trap,” a hole created in the snow underneath trees. "It took like 20 minutes to get out of that,” she recalled in an interview with The Associated Press. "And that kept happening. And so we got to a point where we were literally, like crawling on our bellies to try to get to the next point and just struggling so much that it wasn't working.”

After about an hour of trying to rescue themselves, McKee, 51, of Southborough, Massachusetts, and Beata LeLacheur, 54, of Westborough, Massachusetts, called 911. They reached New Hampshire Fish and Game conservation officers, who plotted their GPS coordinates and directed them toward the trail - just 34 feet (10 meters) away. It didn't work.

"They ended up on the trail several times but could not follow it as it had been completely erased by wind and snow,” said Sgt. Matthew Holmes of the Fish and Game Department. After multiple attempts trying to locate the trail and several phone calls starting around 6 p.m., "the two needed to huddle up in the snow to keep warm and await assistance,” he said.

The temperature at the summit was 2 degrees below zero (minus 19 Celsius), with sustained winds of 50 to 60 mph (80 to 96 kph) at the time, Holmes said. McKee and LeLacheur were stuck at an elevation of about 5,000 feet (1,524 meters). McKee said she was wearing gloves with liners, but still lost the use of her hands due to the cold. "I went into my first aid kid to grab the emergency blanket and extra hand warmers,” she said. "I couldn't open the chest because my hands were frozen."