The A group hike for the week was a N-S traverse of the Willey Range, on the west side of Crawford Notch, bagging Mts Tom, Field, and Willey. Weather again made us move our hike up a day, to take advantage of fair skies and comfortably dry air. It was a warm day, but not all that bad for summer, and the following day would have been downright hot and humid. Doing the nine miles with around 3100 feet of elevation gain would have been downright unpleasant by hike's end.
We dropped a vehicle off at the end of Willey House Station Rd, where the hike would end. The hike began at the train depot at the top of the notch, near the AMC Highland Center. This is the starting point for hikes up Mts Willard, Avalon, Tom, and Field to the west as well as anything across the street, such as Jackson and Pierce. Up a way from the start on the Avalon trail, with a fair amount of elevation gain behind us, we took the right at the junction with the A-Z trail, which took us up another steep mile to where the Mt Tom spur trail begins at the col between Tom and Field. Ultimately, the A-Z trail would have taken us over the hill and down to the Zealand trail and the Zealand Falls hut, but that was not where we were headed.
After a quick snack, we made the half mile ascent to the top of Tom, which has no view at all. Pictured below is the group gathered at the cairn. L-R are Chris, Deb, Mary, Andrea, Andy, and Donna (pic by Dick).
After a quick return to the col, we followed the A-Z trail another 80 yards (so says the sign) to the north end of the Willey Range Trail, which we would follow over the next two peaks and down to its end at the Ethan Pond trail, which would take us the rest of the way out to the vehicle left earlier. But first it was the fairly easily hiked 0.9 miles up to Mt Field. This one has no view at the very top, but a few yards down a little side trail does have a nice view back at Mt Tom and down to the Mt Washington Hotel area. Here we had lunch or at least a snack.
It took around an hour to descend from Mt Field and make our way over and up to Mt Willey. This peak again has no view at all, but a few hundred feet of descent beyond the summit took us to the viewpoint ledge with a stunningly good view down Crawford Notch, across the notch to the famous Webster Cliff, and past there to the southern presidentials and Mt Washington off in the distance. Here is where we refueled for the descent. Pictured below, with the camera view somewhat distorted by the view upward from the bottom of the ledge, are Andrea, Dick, Chris, Mary, Deb, and Donna (pic by Andy). Below that is the view of Webster Cliff and beyond behind Donna.
