I think you have some reading left to catch up on.
Perhaps my having not thrown my life away on a clearly terrible series of decisions makes me arrogant. So be it. You have to push the edge and calculate it correctly in order to come back and talk smack. So, here I be - not sorry.
Talk about speculation! Seriously? Said the pot to the kettle.
You want to learn from this? Here you go - DON'
20170101_112853.jpgT DO IT! Read the sign, turn around, go home alive. Know your hiking RESPONSIBILITY, as it turns out there is a NH law to cover this, and follow it. Follow the NH Code of Responsible Hiking and live to hike another day.
You don't have a God given, or American right of your freedoms, as it turns out, to march up into the tops of the White Mountains in a mid-winter storm and predictably die - Eagle Scout or not. To do so in my opinion is the height of actual arrogance combined with a lethal hubris. Why? Because it ruins it for everyone else that these places are set aside for the enjoyment of for starters. The rescuers, your family, the community, and everyone who survives and is touched by your loss.
Seriously, enough. There is a giant sign at every trail head in NH and it might as well say on a snowy winter's day: "Abandon hope all ye who enter!" Duh. I have the same contempt for those who litter, violate LNT, aren't bear responsible, or base jump off Half Dome and splatter biscuit. Then there's always somebody around to say: "Well, they died doing what they loved!" Like that makes it okay.
Still trying to figure out what happened? Here you go: these folks did what the 64,000 other members on here know good and well not to do, and it killed them. Not a whole heck of lot to speculate on here folks.
Definitely learn from this - but that doesn't mean you have to support it. That's why it'll happen again.