A Triple Crowner and locally well-respected hiker passed away in a winter storm in the White Mountains earlier this week, New Hampshire authorities said.

At 10:20 p.m. on Tuesday, friends of 37-year-old Christopher “Rafiki” Roma reached out to New Hampshire Fish and Game to report that he had contacted them and said that he was in the mountains and in distress. Eventually, Roma himself also made contact with 911 dispatchers, who were able to extract GPS coordinates that placed him somewhere between Mt. Bond and Mt. Guyot before losing contact. Roma had been attempting a single-day hike of the Pemigewasset Loop, a 31.5-mile traverse that crosses 8 of New Hampshires 4,000-foot mountains.

The region was experiencing single digit temperatures, high winds, and snow at the time of the rescue. In its statement, Fish and Game said Roma had told 911 that he was very cold before the call got dropped.

Officials from New Hampshire Fish and Game, Pemigewasset Valley Search and Rescue,and the New Hampshire Mountain Rescue Service teamed up to locate and extract Roma. Attempts to make it to him quickly were hampered by waist-deep snow and inclement weather. 

“At that point, we already had made arrangements to have the Army National Guard fly in, trying to get to him sooner, and the teams were still working at the time” Lt. James Kneeland of New Hampshire Fish and Game told WMUR 9. He added, “in normal travel with no snow, it would’ve only taken two hours, but it took six more hours to travel that same distance in these conditions.”

At about 5 p.m. on Wednesday, nearly 20 hours, after Roma’s distress call, a team of Mountain Rescue Service volunteers made it to his location, where they found him deceased. Rescuers determined that it was too dangerous to attempt an immediate recovery, so they waited until the cloud cover lifted on Thursday morning to retrieve Roma. 

By all accounts, Roma was an extremely experienced hiker who had been recreating in New Hampshire and around the coutnry for many years. He caught the backpacking bug after friends encouraged him to tackle New Hampshire’s tallest peaks fresh out of college. On the site of North East Trekking Company, a hiking outfitter that he ran, Roma wrote that the experience was life-changing: “Not only was it a physical transformation, but a mental transformation as well.”

In addition to becoming an integral part of New Hampshire’s hiking community, Roma was also a Triple Crowner who tackled the Pacific Crest Trail twice. He was one of the few hikers to complete New Hampshire’s Direttissima—a route that connects the state’s 48 four thousand foot peaks in one go—and was a rock climber as well.

Roma’s death shook not only his family and friends, but also the hiking community at large. Friends of Roma’s have established a Go Fund Me page to assist his family with the costs of a memorial. In a statement, the family wrote that, though they were devastated by his death, he had died doing what he loved in one of his favorite places on the planet.

“The Roma family would like to send a heartfelt thank you to all of the rescue workers for their tireless efforts and to the community for coming together with their kind words and donations…The outpouring [of] support has brought the family comfort in this difficult time.”

In light of the incident, New Hampshire Fish and Game warned that winter can be treacherous in the White Mountains, and that proper planning and gear are essential to maintain one’s safety. 

Roma’s official cause of death has not been released. He is survived by a two-year-old son. 

From 2024