In kind of a last minute hike/destination change, my wife and I headed up to North Conway for the weekend on Friday night. We had planned on doing Bondcliff, but do the rather vague forecast of thunderstorms during the afternoon we decided instead to just do Tom and Field.
With that decision made, we booked a room at the Bernerhof Inn in Bartlett, a really nice place and managed to snag a room with a hot tub. We watched the 1st half of the Pats and the Sox at Delaney's Hole in the Wall (another fav of ours) then headed back for an early nights sleep.
We hit the Avalon trailhead at 8AM - I envy those of you who live closer to the Whites than we do. It was fairly buggy for the first mile or so, but the trail was flat and the temperature read 68 degrees when we started. We arrived at the AZ Junction in 50 minutes - ahead of booktime by 15 minutes (yay) and we were both feeling good.
We stopped for a drink and a snickers and then headed on up the A-Z trail. While there are no really good views on the A-Z, I really liked it. There is a fair bit of elevation gain in the mile or so we were on it, but it never felt steep and the footing was excellent. It was nice that for every somewhat prolonged uphill, there were nicely spaced steps or a flat stretch in between the ups.
We reached the Mount Tom Spur path without seeing anyone else and made our way over to the summit. The views were ok - a bit hazy and cloudy looking into the Zealand Valley. We enjoyed an early lunch then headed back down to walk over to the summit of Field.
Our journey on the Wiley Range Trail was also nice - an easy uphill with good footing and we reached the top in what seemed like no time. We spent a few minutes talking with a father and son from Maine. We saw a hawk flash by about 5 feet of the ground coming up from Tom right along the trail and flash his belly as he went by surving effortlessly and quickly on the Wiley Range Trail. It was too fast for anything but a wow and only the son and I saw it - my wife totally missed it.
We decided to descend via Avalon, which I was a little leery of as my wife gets scared on steep downhills and the decline in elevation + the description in the White Mountain Guide told me it would be better to head back down the Wiley Range Trail and then back down the A-Z. I had left the final decision to my wife and she decided she would rather save the .4 of a mile and not have to retrace our steps.
We set out and it was apparent pretty quick that it wasnt a great choice. It wasnt overly steep at first, but several of the ledgy sections were still wet from the night befores rain and we both were going slow. I could tell she was getting nervous and just like that she took a tumble. She ended up banging her knee pretty good, scraping her elbow, and scaring the beejesus out of herself and me
We took a break at that point and from there on I lead - pointing out places to place her feet and offering a hand. She was pretty nerved up but as time went on settled down and we picked up the pace. We decided to skip Avalon as her knee was sore.
We made slow time down to the intersection of the A-Z and Avalon trails, passing a number of interesting sites. We saw a women sitting on a log about 1.6 miles from the road. She was writing in a journal and after we passed her my wife mentioned the women was wearing dress sandals. We saw two people hiking with no water or packs or anything. Another family struggling up Avalon had an LL Bean bookbag and nothing else for the four of them - no apparent water outside of the pack which did not look full. Sometimes it amazes me there arent more horror stories in the mountains.
I dunked my head in Crawford brook on the way down and we had a bit of a break then motored down to the car. We headed back to town and I knew my wife was ok when she suggested hitting the outlets for a while.
All in all, it was a wonderful hike. We both agreed that with the exception of her fall, it was one of the better days we have had in the whites.
It was number 16 for me on my restarted list and number 12 for her.
With that decision made, we booked a room at the Bernerhof Inn in Bartlett, a really nice place and managed to snag a room with a hot tub. We watched the 1st half of the Pats and the Sox at Delaney's Hole in the Wall (another fav of ours) then headed back for an early nights sleep.
We hit the Avalon trailhead at 8AM - I envy those of you who live closer to the Whites than we do. It was fairly buggy for the first mile or so, but the trail was flat and the temperature read 68 degrees when we started. We arrived at the AZ Junction in 50 minutes - ahead of booktime by 15 minutes (yay) and we were both feeling good.
We stopped for a drink and a snickers and then headed on up the A-Z trail. While there are no really good views on the A-Z, I really liked it. There is a fair bit of elevation gain in the mile or so we were on it, but it never felt steep and the footing was excellent. It was nice that for every somewhat prolonged uphill, there were nicely spaced steps or a flat stretch in between the ups.
We reached the Mount Tom Spur path without seeing anyone else and made our way over to the summit. The views were ok - a bit hazy and cloudy looking into the Zealand Valley. We enjoyed an early lunch then headed back down to walk over to the summit of Field.
Our journey on the Wiley Range Trail was also nice - an easy uphill with good footing and we reached the top in what seemed like no time. We spent a few minutes talking with a father and son from Maine. We saw a hawk flash by about 5 feet of the ground coming up from Tom right along the trail and flash his belly as he went by surving effortlessly and quickly on the Wiley Range Trail. It was too fast for anything but a wow and only the son and I saw it - my wife totally missed it.
We decided to descend via Avalon, which I was a little leery of as my wife gets scared on steep downhills and the decline in elevation + the description in the White Mountain Guide told me it would be better to head back down the Wiley Range Trail and then back down the A-Z. I had left the final decision to my wife and she decided she would rather save the .4 of a mile and not have to retrace our steps.
We set out and it was apparent pretty quick that it wasnt a great choice. It wasnt overly steep at first, but several of the ledgy sections were still wet from the night befores rain and we both were going slow. I could tell she was getting nervous and just like that she took a tumble. She ended up banging her knee pretty good, scraping her elbow, and scaring the beejesus out of herself and me
We took a break at that point and from there on I lead - pointing out places to place her feet and offering a hand. She was pretty nerved up but as time went on settled down and we picked up the pace. We decided to skip Avalon as her knee was sore. We made slow time down to the intersection of the A-Z and Avalon trails, passing a number of interesting sites. We saw a women sitting on a log about 1.6 miles from the road. She was writing in a journal and after we passed her my wife mentioned the women was wearing dress sandals. We saw two people hiking with no water or packs or anything. Another family struggling up Avalon had an LL Bean bookbag and nothing else for the four of them - no apparent water outside of the pack which did not look full. Sometimes it amazes me there arent more horror stories in the mountains.
I dunked my head in Crawford brook on the way down and we had a bit of a break then motored down to the car. We headed back to town and I knew my wife was ok when she suggested hitting the outlets for a while.
All in all, it was a wonderful hike. We both agreed that with the exception of her fall, it was one of the better days we have had in the whites.
It was number 16 for me on my restarted list and number 12 for her.
