Amantio
New member
Last week, I opined here that I do not possess the soul of a solo hiker. Those words troubled me as I wrote them, and I pondered them through the week. If I rule out solo hikes, I limit myself to hikes within my capabilities, where I can recruit or glom myself on to other hikers, where I’m not slowing down the pace, and where stars align with the weather, my family commitments and various and sundry logistics . In the winter, this can create a very short list of opportunities indeed.
With this in mind, I contemplated my options this past weekend. Saturday would be a no-go due to household commitments. Sunday beckoned. Target: Tom, Field, and maybe Willley. Solo it would be.
I head north out of Massachusetts at 5 a.m. Due to daylight savings, this would be the middle of the night. After a stop at the Irving by the Living Waters campground for a very fine egg n cheese on a muffin, served by a man who insists on calling me “buddy”, I check in at the Highland Center for a report on trail conditions and weather. Both were promising, so I head back to the car to gear up. I chat with a fellow similarly suiting up out of the car next to mine, whose plan was to take the Crawford Path up to the Lake of the Clouds Hut. He asks me how I got started doing this, and, after a bit of reflection, I reply, “I turned 50 and I went nuts.” He says it was the same with him.
At about 9:15 I start up the Avalon Trail. The trail gently slopes upward into the woods, over a well packed trail and some firm water crossings. Soon I establish a nice rhythm. A benefit of this solo hike will be for me to discover my natural pace. So far so good, as I reach the A-Z trail junction at 1.3 miles in an hour flat, even after a “bio” and snack/hydration break. The second junction, at the Tom Spur, is gained at a slower pace, due to the pitch, with nine-tenths of a mile covered in a hair shy of an hour. I scoot up to the top of Tom, where I encounter my first Gray Jay, who, perched on my fingertips, steals bits of gorp from the palm of my hand. This enchanting encounter provides me with my only opportunity to converse during all of today’s hike, albeit in a rather one-sided conversation.
Back down Tom Spur, up a hundred yards to the Willey Range Trail, bang a left, and everything is good. It’s about noon, and the gloom and snow showers of the morning are beginning to give way to brighter skies. I have a groundhog moment, and briefly see my shadow. As I approach the Field summit, the wind roars a bit louder overhead, though, and I stop to don my shell. While I’m at it, I bend over to lower my snowshoe televators, and the left one snaps off in my hand. Metal fatigue. After barely one season. The folks at EMS and Atlas Snowshoe will be hearing from yours truly.
Atop Field, the skies directly overhead clear, the sun shines down upon me, as the clouds continue to swirl all around. No views, but the sun feels great.
As I venture across the summit in the direction of Willey, the broken out portion of the trail abruptly ends, and the debate begins. Willey summit is 1.4 miles away. That’s 2.8 back and forth. That’s if you can stay on the unbroken trail. If you pull out now, you’ve done a 7 plus mile hike with 2 peaks under your belt. Respectable. Willey turns that into nearly ten miles, and a third peak. Even better.
It’s one o’clock, your pace has been good, and you feel OK. You probably have two hours ahead of you to get back to the Notch. After another 2.8 miles of down and up and down and up again and your pace won’t be so good. You might not be back here until after four. The hike out will take you to six, and you have a three plus hour drive home. And if something bad happens on the way to Willey (or back), it doesn’t look like there’s been anyone going that way for a few days. No one will stumble upon your disabled carcass any time soon. Do you want the little helicopter to come looking for you? Do you want to be on the six o’clock news?
Discretion ultimately prevails, and I head down the Avalon Trail. At Avalon, I convince my legs, rubber now from the descent, to switch gears and carry me the hundred yards (straight up) to the summit, where I am rewarded with a most glorious view of Crawford Notch, with only the high summits across the way shrouded in cloud. All else is bathed in sunlight beneath azure skies. I look over my shoulder at Tom and Field and smile to myself, and then over at Willey and know that I will be back to deal with it some other day.
I'm off the mountain by 2:45, and home before dark. Upon my return, I fire up the computer to check out trail condition reports, and I see that I was not alone up there, after all. LRiz apparently trailed me by a couple of hours. I’m surprised she didn’t catch up. Must have run out of Red Bull, or GU. Anyway, I didn’t take any pictures, but perhaps LRiz would be so kind as to post a few?
With this in mind, I contemplated my options this past weekend. Saturday would be a no-go due to household commitments. Sunday beckoned. Target: Tom, Field, and maybe Willley. Solo it would be.
I head north out of Massachusetts at 5 a.m. Due to daylight savings, this would be the middle of the night. After a stop at the Irving by the Living Waters campground for a very fine egg n cheese on a muffin, served by a man who insists on calling me “buddy”, I check in at the Highland Center for a report on trail conditions and weather. Both were promising, so I head back to the car to gear up. I chat with a fellow similarly suiting up out of the car next to mine, whose plan was to take the Crawford Path up to the Lake of the Clouds Hut. He asks me how I got started doing this, and, after a bit of reflection, I reply, “I turned 50 and I went nuts.” He says it was the same with him.
At about 9:15 I start up the Avalon Trail. The trail gently slopes upward into the woods, over a well packed trail and some firm water crossings. Soon I establish a nice rhythm. A benefit of this solo hike will be for me to discover my natural pace. So far so good, as I reach the A-Z trail junction at 1.3 miles in an hour flat, even after a “bio” and snack/hydration break. The second junction, at the Tom Spur, is gained at a slower pace, due to the pitch, with nine-tenths of a mile covered in a hair shy of an hour. I scoot up to the top of Tom, where I encounter my first Gray Jay, who, perched on my fingertips, steals bits of gorp from the palm of my hand. This enchanting encounter provides me with my only opportunity to converse during all of today’s hike, albeit in a rather one-sided conversation.
Back down Tom Spur, up a hundred yards to the Willey Range Trail, bang a left, and everything is good. It’s about noon, and the gloom and snow showers of the morning are beginning to give way to brighter skies. I have a groundhog moment, and briefly see my shadow. As I approach the Field summit, the wind roars a bit louder overhead, though, and I stop to don my shell. While I’m at it, I bend over to lower my snowshoe televators, and the left one snaps off in my hand. Metal fatigue. After barely one season. The folks at EMS and Atlas Snowshoe will be hearing from yours truly.
Atop Field, the skies directly overhead clear, the sun shines down upon me, as the clouds continue to swirl all around. No views, but the sun feels great.
As I venture across the summit in the direction of Willey, the broken out portion of the trail abruptly ends, and the debate begins. Willey summit is 1.4 miles away. That’s 2.8 back and forth. That’s if you can stay on the unbroken trail. If you pull out now, you’ve done a 7 plus mile hike with 2 peaks under your belt. Respectable. Willey turns that into nearly ten miles, and a third peak. Even better.
It’s one o’clock, your pace has been good, and you feel OK. You probably have two hours ahead of you to get back to the Notch. After another 2.8 miles of down and up and down and up again and your pace won’t be so good. You might not be back here until after four. The hike out will take you to six, and you have a three plus hour drive home. And if something bad happens on the way to Willey (or back), it doesn’t look like there’s been anyone going that way for a few days. No one will stumble upon your disabled carcass any time soon. Do you want the little helicopter to come looking for you? Do you want to be on the six o’clock news?
Discretion ultimately prevails, and I head down the Avalon Trail. At Avalon, I convince my legs, rubber now from the descent, to switch gears and carry me the hundred yards (straight up) to the summit, where I am rewarded with a most glorious view of Crawford Notch, with only the high summits across the way shrouded in cloud. All else is bathed in sunlight beneath azure skies. I look over my shoulder at Tom and Field and smile to myself, and then over at Willey and know that I will be back to deal with it some other day.
I'm off the mountain by 2:45, and home before dark. Upon my return, I fire up the computer to check out trail condition reports, and I see that I was not alone up there, after all. LRiz apparently trailed me by a couple of hours. I’m surprised she didn’t catch up. Must have run out of Red Bull, or GU. Anyway, I didn’t take any pictures, but perhaps LRiz would be so kind as to post a few?
