The White Mountains are no joke. On a summer trip I got caught out with a rain that turned from mild to not-fun over the span of an hour, with large wind gusts catching us on exposed ridge for a couple miles until we could go below treeline again.
The more I read about the Whites, I'm a little surprised how different they sound from the Adirondacks. It's like that additional 800' of elevation of the highest handful of peaks makes all the difference with long exposed ridges. In the Adirondacks you might get a mile of being exposed, but it dips back down into the trees pretty quickly. And a mile catches plenty of people off guard. I can think of two pretty serious but thankfully successful rescues because people got stuck above the treeline just in that short distance.