One of my favorite hiking developments in recent months is finding more buddies to explore the White Mountains with. I tend to squeeze my climbs in during the middle of the week, so it’s hard to come by others who have the same work flexibility. Add to that the desire to push their bodies up a mountain, and the pool of potential buddies gets even smaller. But I guess if you keep climbing long enough, eventually you’re bound to find some like-minded people who want to test themselves on a similar schedule. Huzzah!
A couple of weeks ago, one of my new climbing companions joined me for a loop hike of Avalon, Field, and Willey. Having someone to go with made returning to the area much more enjoyable. I’ve always been blown away by the people who do what’s known as “The Grid,” where individuals climb all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4000-footers, at some point, in every calendar month of the year. How do they do that? As much as I love being in the mountains, I think the tedium of revisiting the same peaks that many times would wear on me. As my climbing ramps up again, I’m motivated to revisit the mountains I wrote 4000s by 40 about, but there is a big part of me that doesn’t want to tread the same trails again. And I don’t always feel the need to do a 4000-footer either. If I go climbing by myself, I often opt for a mountain that I haven’t seen before, like the ones you can find on New Hampshire’s “52 With a View” list. It seems I’m always drawn to finding someplace new.
But when one of my hiking buddies wants to tackle a 4000-footer, I love it, because it motivates me to see those particular mountains again and breathes new life into the familiar. I also love that I get to be a part of their climbing efforts. Finding people who enjoy such things brings another reward to the climb. To keep things interesting for me though, I’ll sometimes work in a little variety on the trail, avoiding routes I’ve already done.
Beautiful views from the Summit of Mount Avalon
Lately, I’ve been climbing a lot with my friend Brian. He and I pace really well together and have conquered several 4000-footers in the last couple of months. First, we hit East Osceola and Osceola one day, before tackling Moosilauke on another. In both ascents, I mixed in a little bit of something new for me. I was never able to cross “The Chimney” from East Osceola to Osceola on my previous visit to those peaks because they were iced over, and I had forgotten to bring my spikes. So, I was psyched to try that. And on Moosilauke, we picked a new route. I had only climbed the Gorge Brook Trail before, so this time we ascended the steep and rocky Beaver Brook Trail, which I rather enjoyed.
As the winter progresses, I’m exercising caution to ensure that finding something “new” is met with proper planning and safety awareness. The weather changes so dramatically each day at this time of year, you’d be foolish not to. To that end, I remembered Mount Tom as an easier winter hike and thought it would be a great place to test things out. It was early in the winter season, and while I knew there would be snow, I wasn’t sure how much yet. This area of the White Mountains is a great place to gauge winter conditions and see what you are ready for as you continue to explore the other 4000-footers, so I made a plan for us to do Avalon, Field, and then Tom, before heading back to the car. Given our previous experiences in the mountains, I knew the distance would be more than manageable, and, of course, I had to include Avalon since I’d never done it before.
Late November snow in The White Mountains. We didn’t need spikes, but our Yaktrax were indispensable
We had a great climb—too good, in fact, because in the middle of talking, we got lost. Well, not really. We took a wrong turn at the top of Field, not realizing the cutover to Tom was below the summit (I had never been this way before) and ended up on the trail toward Willey. Along the way, we bumped into a local guide who confirmed we were heading in the wrong direction. He was adamant that we bag Willey anyway, because we were so close, so we followed his advice. In the midst of laughing about the guide’s misinterpretation of our true climbing intentions, we started referring to Brian as “Bilbo Baggers.”
Bilbo Baggers knows how to hike. We had taken a wrong turn, and he didn’t care. Despite the hiccup with the trail, he ventured on without hesitation and plenty of energy. We were never able to hit Tom, because Bilbo had to get back home by a certain hour, but it didn’t matter. We got out there, on snow-covered trails, and even got to meet some gray jays at the top of Mount Avalon. It was a blast. Good conversation took our minds off our buckling knees on the long descent and led to moments of silence that were equally enjoyable.
Most assertive gray jays I’ve ever met were the ones on Mount Avalon
I often go climbing alone, and I love it. Those are good days for me to explore some bit of writing that I’m working on, or to simply quiet my mind and peacefully enjoy nature. I cherish the ability to get that kind of “me time.” But I hold climbing with pals in the same regard. Not only do we share some good laughs, but when you find people who appreciate a good challenge and nature as much as you do, those long climbs feel a lot less daunting.
We met a lot of other hikers on the trail, including this furry one named Loki
Some quick notes about these mountains:
- Avalon was my favorite. It had better views at its summit, despite being under 4,000 feet.
- Willey and Field have cairns marking viewless summits, and honestly, I can’t definitively remember which summit the cairn photo below was from—I think it was Willey! From a past trip up a different route, I remember Willey having good views on the way up, but we didn’t get much on this section of the Willey Ridge Trail.
- If I were to come back to the area for a winter climb of a 4,000-footer, my vote would still be Tom. Even though we didn’t climb it on this trip, it’s a beautiful hike, and if you stretch your head at the summit, you can catch a really nice view of the Presidentials.
- If you’re looking to meet some gray jays, I find them to be a bit more forthcoming on Avalon and Willey than on Field and Tom. If I had to rank your chances of a gray jay meetup on each mountain, I’d go with Avalon (1), Willey (2), Tom (3), and Field (4).
Summit of Willey? Field? Does it matter?
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