Tom, Field and Willey

May 21, 2022 - Another solo adventure

I was able to get up north for a 2nd weekend in a row and decided to try to knock off a couple peaks in the process. I parked near the Highland Center at Crawford Notch to get the trailhead for the peaks of Tom, Field and Willey. Doing more than one peak at a time makes me feel like the drive up is worth it. Can’t do that with all of them, but I was excited to try to knock off 3 more.

I arrived at the parking lot a little after 6am. It was foggy and misting a little bit, and there was very few cars in the parking lot. It was just a dreary morning. But the weather wasn’t supposed to be bad, so I got my stuff ready and hit the trail around 6:30. The plan was to do Mt. Tom first, then head over to Mt. Field and finally hit up Mt. Willey. After that, I would backtrack to Field and then cut over a different path to get back to the truck.

Avalon was the first trail from the parking lot. It started off steep pretty much right away. I’m beginning to sense a theme with the beginning of getting to these peaks. Avalon met up with A-Z trail, and I stayed to the right to head up A-Z. This was still steep. I ended up catching a girl that had started before me. We were going at basically the same pace, so we actually ended up hiking basically the entire day together. A-Z Trail led up to Mt. Tom Spur, which was just a short trail to get to the peak. Not much to say about Mt. Tom. It was uneventful. I saw another hiker getting there from the other direction around the same time. We all had a laugh about how uneventful it was, had a snack and some water, and then we were all on our way. That took about an hour and a half to get to the peak of Mt. Tom and see a pile of rocks.

Mt. Field was up next. I went back down Mt. Tom Spur to get back to the A-Z trail. Continued on this just for a very short distance until I reached the junction for the Willey Range Trail, which would take me all the way to Mt. Field. The one thing this trail had was sections of ice still. I didn’t bother putting my crampons on. I did just fine stepping to the side of the monorail of ice, but I did get quite wet from brushing up against the trees by sidestepping the trail. I assume this will be the last I see of ice on the trails. It was only sections that still had it, so all the ice will probably be gone soon. The hike from Tom to Field wasn’t that bad in terms of elevation. I reached the summit of Field in about an hour to see yet another pile of rocks. No need to break here, just a quick drink of water and it was time to get to Mt. Willey.

To get to Mt. Willey, all I had to do was continue on the Willey Range Trail. It would take me straight there. There was a little more ice on the way there, but I was still able to remain spike-free without issue. It took about an hour again to reach the summit of Mt. Willey. There was a little bit of a view right before the summit, but just like the other two peaks, this one was just another pile of rocks. And just like the section to Mt. Field, this wasn’t a difficult hike at all. I really enjoyed these trails because they were narrow and not very heavily travelled. I prefer trails that are deep in the woods and not ruined by a lot of foot traffic. It seems a little more primal to be out there on some narrow trail than it does to be on a wide trail that is used by hundreds of people everyday. So, it was only a little after 10am at this point, and I had just banged out 3 more peaks. I just had to get back to the truck now.

The way back is to backtrack over Mt. Field via the Willey Range Trail. Right after passing Mt. Field again, the Willey Range Trail splits and I picked up the Avalon Trail to head back to the trailhead. This just cut off going back to Mt. Tom and down the A-Z. Along the Avalon Trail, there is a small cutoff to get to Mt. Avalon, which is just about 3,400 feet. I’m told there is a pretty good view from this area, but I opted not to head over there and decided to just book it back to the parking lot. As I got closer to the trailhead, there were some stream crossings (which I had crossed on the way up to Mt. Tom as well). It was a warm day, so I had to get down and stick my head into the running water of the stream. It was cold and fresh and felt amazing. From there it was just a short hike down to get back to the truck. That’s 3 more peaks, which puts me at 9 now. Long way to go, but I’m making steady progress.