11/15/2014

Mt Tom 4,051Ft, Mt Field 4,340Ft, Mt Willey 4,285 Ft, Mt Avalon 3,342 Ft

A-Z trail, Avalon Trail, Willey Range Trail, Mt. Tom spur, A-Z Trail (pseudo loop)

12:10P – 4:40P 

9.7 Miles

After finishing my 3rd round I decided to take last week off and rest up a bit. It felt great to get back out onto the trails. My dog General Patton had only 8 mountains remaining on his list. I figured with a whole new round ahead of me and a clear board of mountain choices we would get some done. A 3 for 1 hike of the Willey range was a no brainer. Away we go…

The weather was in and out of the clouds but with our luck we were the “out” of the clouds side of the range. The snow was not too bad yet and I was able to bare boot most of this hike. I ended up using my spikes on the steep parts of the last 100 yards of the Avalon spur, but just kept them on the rest of the day. I would not have “needed” them though. With snow in the forecast this should be a game time decision for anyone who is going to attempt this hike. 

I enjoy going over Avalon on this hike because it has an amazing view of the Presidential range and is not difficult to add to this hike as the trail helps make a great loop of Field and Tom as well. Here are some of the views from Mount Avalon…

From here we made way to Field. We ran into some lovely ladies shortly after who were finishing their hike of Tom and Field. One of the two was a grid finisher. Cynthia and I had a quick conversation about peak bagging. Shortly after we said our good byes. Patton and I made haste to the top of Field where I grabbed these shots.

We did not stay on field though. We kept moving to Willey. We passed a couple more groups of people and Patton got some lovin’ the whole way. We made it to Willey and got some great views while I enjoyed a beer I had brought. We ran into a very well behaved husky named Denali who’s family had just finished hiking up the face of Willey. Unfortunately Patton did not think he was very nice. This cut my conversation with the owners short. Patton can be very territorial sometimes. As it goes with dogs…

We then made our way back over Field to Mt. Tom. This is a pretty easy hike with the only real gains are before Field and again before Tom. Once on Tom we got some great views looking West. We did not stay long though as the day was getting on, and we were getting cold.

With the sun going down I wanted to test Patton and I to see if we could make it out before sunset. We started jogging down the A-Z trail back to Crawford junction. It is a great hike down and we make great time as the sunlight was just about to finish out for the day. With this hike Patton is at 43 4000 footers. He only has Isolation, the Kinsmans, and the Wildcats remaining. He should finish in the next few weeks!