Hiking in the White Mountains: Mount Avalon

Date of Hike: 4/3/15

Avalon Trail: 2.8 miles / Willey Range Trail: 3.7 miles / Mount Tom Spur: 1.0 miles / A-Z Trail: 2.0 miles
Total Miles 9.5 miles (3,575 feet elevation gained)

Trip Report:
- Friday's weather was absolutely beautiful, fifty plus degrees up above 4,000 feet. I decided to do a quick hike/run of the Willey Range with a goal of a sub three hour time.
- I was able to wear my La Sportiva Crossover 2.0 GTX trail runners and my three season hiking pants while strapped into my snowshoes from start to finish. I need to invest in some trail running snowshoes and some running pants to make things a little easier running in the snow. The Tubbs Flex Alps are not built for running and they're slowly falling apart!
- There were great views from the summit outlooks of the Presidential Range, Crawford Notch, Zealand Valley/Notch all the way to the Bond/Guyot/Twin Range.
- The Willey range is slowly growing on me during the winter and early spring months as the high snow pack make for some interesting views that can't be seen during the summer and fall.
- Was able to finish the hike/run in 2:53, seven minutes under my goal, a perfect work break between morning and late afternoon work projects!

Route for the day, click here for details

Heading up to Mount Avalon

Sacco Lake below with the Presidential Range rising high above

Mount Tom from Avalon

Crawford Notch

Mount Willey sitting above Crawford Notch

Mount Willey and Field

Looking back at Mount Avalon

View of the Mount Washington Hotel and Mount Tom from Mount Field's outlook

Mount Tom and Mount Washington Valley

Presidential Range

Heading along the Willey Range Trail to Mount Willey

Views from the Mount Willey outlook

Crawford Notch

Webster Cliff and the Presidential Range

Mount Nancy, Anderson, Lowell, and Carrigain (top). Bond, Guyot, Twins (bottom).

Willey Range Trail to Mount Tom

Mount Tom's summit area

View over to Zealand Notch from Mount Tom

Zealand Falls and the hut. Picture taken by Whitney who was hiking the Willey Range the day before

The summits of Field, Willey, and Tom

Crawford Notch Scenic Railway

Late afternoon sun shining through the clouds over Mount Tom and Field

Top of Crawford Notch from the Highland Center

The railroad tracks, the sign at the Webster-Jackson trailhead, and a compass bearing at the Highland Center

Signs spotted along the way!

Snowshoes have seen better days!

Nerdy hiking data :)

Date of Hikes: 1/4/14

Avalon / Field / Tom
Avalon Trail: 2.8 miles / Willey Range Trail: 1.0 miles / Mount Tom Spur: 1.2 miles / A-Z Trail: 1.0 miles / Avalon Trail: 1.3 miles (Total Miles: 7.3 / 3,000 feet elevation gained)
Click here for trail descriptions

Trip Report:
- Until I head back to the Adirondacks, I am a hiking orphan and looking to be adopted for hikes! Over the past week and a half I was invited by Kelsey to hike with her, Kristina, and Jane on Lafayette, Whitney invited me to hike Isolation and Hale with Denise, Matt, and Kyle, and this weekend I tagged along with Bob&Geri, Steven, Kelsey, Tony, and Nicole to hike Avalon, Field, and Tom on Saturday and Isolation on Sunday. Yes, Isolation, again!
- The weather on Saturday was in the negatives as the sun rose so we didn't start our hike until eleven in the morning. By then temperatures were in the mid to high teens as we met up at the Highland Center to start our hike.
- Conditions were great for snowshoes as we headed up the Avalon Trail to the A-Z spilt. The Avalon Trail starts across the train tracks at the Crawford Scenic Railroad Depot. The trail has moderate grades until it reaches the split, along the way it crosses the Crawford Brook twice, which were solidly snowbridged, then angles up through a dense forest.
- Once at the split we banged a left and headed up to Mount Avalon, the trail becomes excessively steep and we all put the televators up on our snowshoes, except for Tony who didn't have any on his, ouch! Steven had never used the televators before so he was thrilled with the difference it made and was thankful. The reward for the steep ascent up Mount Avalon is fantastic views from it's tiny summit ledge. there are excellent views across the notch of the Presidential Range and down into the notch.
- From here we motored up to the Willey Range Trail to the summit of Mount Field. Before gaining the ridge we ran into Chris Lawrie doing a Tom, Field, Willey, Avalon hike. It was good to see Chris, who I last saw on Flags of the 48 in the Liberty / Flume Col.
- Mount Field's summit is wooded but it has an incredible downlook just below it. Just like Avalon it has great views of the Presidential Range, it also has views over to Mount Tom and to the west into Vermont and northwest into Canada. I thought I could see the Adirondack High Peaks since the views were endless but Bob pointed out to me I was looking northwest toward the Canadian border.
- From Field, Kelsey, Dusty, Bob, and I ran down to the A-Z / Mount Tom Spur junction. There are no views along this one mile stretch but it is one of the more picturesque 'In the Woods' winter scenes in the White Mountains.
- Once the rest of the gang caught up we headed on up the easy grade to the summit of Mount Tom and checked out it's views over to Zealand Notch, the Twin / Guyot / Bond Range on one side of the summit, then headed over to the other side for more great views of the Presidential Range, Willey Range, the backside of Carrigain Notch, etc.
- After a couple of minutes and several pictures we started our descent down the Mount Tom Spur, A-Z, and Avalon Trails. Except for a steep few tenths of a mile after hooking onto the A-Z Trail below Mount Tom it's an easy hike out over moderate grades, located deep in the woods, and is shielded from all of the wind.
- It was a great hike and the weather was exceptional for crystal clear views with cool clouds and pretty awesome jet condensation trails left high in the sky!