Tom, Field, & Willey
- Eliza Laycock
- Aug 14, 2020
- 4 min read
Date: 8/6/2020
Mount Tom Elevation: 4,051’
Mount Field Elevation: 4,326’
Mount Willey Elevation: 4,285’
Miles: 9.5 miles
Time: 6 hours, 39 minutes
Trails: Up Avalon Trail, split to A-Z trail, spur to Mount Tom, back to Willey Range Trail, hit Mount Field, onto Mount Willey, back on Avalon Trail
Average HR: 132
Peak HR: 181
For the first time since May 23, I went a week without hiking. I say that not to be dramatic, but, I don’t know, I think it’s pretty cool that I hiked that consistently. Last week I was just too tired to hike, but Tom, Field, and Willey were great ones to come back with, especially considering the people whom I was with (look at me using that whom!!).
But apparently after 15 days off, I was rusty. Even after a late-night FaceTime to convince Elliott to come with us and after giving him all the times we were meeting and everything, I still managed to mess up my alarm in the morning. Somehow I set it for the time I was supposed to be fully getting to Dan and Whit’s to meet up with Matti and El…I woke up super rushed and threw together everything to get out the door. Shoutout my mom for making my pb&j for me. So eventually I got to Dan and Whit’s half an hour later than I was supposed to; El had surprised Matti and I’m sure that was cute, but I missed it completely.
Luckily, since my friends are amazing, they were very understanding and we were off to meet Josie at the AMC Highland Center at Crawford Notch. A new resident at Mass Gen, she had a rare midweek post-call day off, so she popped on up to the Whites for the day. Josie is a mountain woman and I don’t know how her body is capable of the things that it is, so naturally, while she waited for our late arrival, she went on a two mile run before our hike even started. Too classic. We got there around 9am, and this time I was there for Elliott’s surprise—yay for our reunion!!
By 9:15 we were on Avalon Trail with Matti in her fre$h new hiking boots that had been broken in(?) on a trek to the Enfield Post Office. Like I said, Josie is basically one with the mountains so she set a very good pace for us and with the relatively relaxed terrain we made it up to Mount Tom by 10:45am. After a quick pit stop at the cairn (no real views here), we were onto Mount Field, which we hit around 11:40am. Field is treed-in too, so we kept going towards Mount Willey after a quick stop. The trail is pretty narrow with looser, small rocks, but like whatever, it was fine.
We came to Mount Willey (around 12:30 I think?), which I still am not totally sure how to pronounce, and finally got that view! The true summit is also a cairn in the woods but if you’re approaching from Field then there’s a rock slab with some good views if you’re standing up.

We decided to stop here for lunch and some bomb snacks Josie brought because she is the best. She had Trader Joe’s “soft and juicy” mango (which I’ve now bought four packs of), some big ol’ carrots, and these amazingggg shortbread cookie things. They’re so good imma just drop the link here so you can make them for yourself. She didn’t do the salted outside, log kinda deal, so really they’re just as good without that extra step:

Some hikers passed us while we were munchin’ and we advised them that the cairn was up ahead but we thought this was the best view. The hikers kept disappearing for longer than expected for them to just be sitting on some rocks in the woods…suspicious. Finally, one that we had sent on his merry way came back to tell us that we were actually not where the best view was and that we had to go just a bit further. Ahhh…there it was. I realized that I had actually read about this online where another hiker had said to go past the cairn for the views. Totally forgot. We packed our stuff up and walked a minute further and, lo and behold, the trail opened up to some great views. See for yourself:


Our fourth and final peak of the day was Mount Avalon—not a 4,000 footer, but it completed the loop we were on and had some of the best views. We were there by 2:45pm and came up just as a big group was leaving; good timing since we also got to see a really cute yellow lab. These views were definitely great, but I think I liked the ones from Willey better? Idk do both and see for yourself.
The descent from Avalon is pretty steep, so sometimes people recommend going up that way instead, but honestly it wasn’t that bad and it’s all about whether you’d rather start with the good views or end with them. We preferred ending with them :)
At 3:57pm we were off the trail and the Crawford Notch bathrooms were right there at the mouth of the trail waiting for us. So clutch. We checked out the blisters Matti had gotten from those new boots (sad) and said our goodbyes to Josie. I’m so grateful to have all these super special people in my life who support and inspire me and it was so amazing to get to spend a day in the mountains with them. Josie should get more days off imo.
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