Hiked October 18-19, 2008 by Tim and Valerie via a loop - Zealand Trail, A-Z Trail, Willey Range Trail, Ethan Pond Trail and back to Zealand
This was our first attempt to carry full backpacks over one or more 4000-footers. It's also the longest mileage we've done with full packs in NH.
We started on Saturday at 9:30AM. It was very clear and 32 degrees as we left the Zealand parking lot. The lot was packed. Some cars were obviously overnighters for the hut, but 4 cars of people arrived just in the time we were getting our packs on, so there are a lot of people heading into the woods. Also, we saw a couple hunters head into the trail about 5 minutes ahead of us. They must have turned off quickly because we never saw them again. We were glad of that, considering the traffic on the Zealand Trail.
If we had to write a forecast, we would have called for "yellow birch leaf showers throughout the day". They were raining down on us as we started up the trail. All other leaves were long gone. Actually, from Franconia Notch north all the way to Zealand - everything deciduous looked dead.
The Zealand Trail is flat and easy, with good views along the way. Tim spotted (and actually photographed!) a yellow-rumped warbler.
Got to the intersection with the A-Z trail in an hour. All the leaves are off the trees at this point - even the birch. Throughout the day, we would again hit "pockets" of yellow, but otherwise, it's safe to say that autumn is about over here. In places, we saw ice film on top of the ponds. the mud in the trail is frozen. At least that makes walking a little easier! The woods are odd in places on the A-Z trail. It's obvious that the logging has happened more recently than we're used to seeing on other hikes. We were also surprised how "unused" this trail seems. It was a positively gorgeous day and we went four hours (A-Z and Willey Range trails) without meeting another hiker.
At one point, we found lots of moose scrapings. That must be one very tall moose!
We did something very unusual for us. We stopped and cooked a hot lunch. We had to deal with the fact that it took longer than our usual 10-minute break, but the warm soup made a big difference. It was definitely worth it.
We knew we were getting close to the Willey Range Trail when we ran into these fellas.
And there it was! Valerie is happy as this signifies "a little past halfway" for the day. So far, it's been many miles of flat and easy trail, with about 0.5 miles of UP to get to this junction. All the real fun is still in front of us.
We got to the top of Mt Field and were very surprised at how small the summit area is. Wow... we were there last winter and it seemed 4-5x as large! Of course, all these trees were much shorter too! Tim looks off towards what we think is Franconia Ridge, and you can see the ice that formed on the tops of the trees.
From the southern end of Mt Field, we can see Mt Willey, our next destination. We made quick order of this 1.4 mile stretch, again remarking how it looked nothing like it did last winter... It's possible that the snowshoe trail we followed last winter didn't really follow the *trail*. Anyways, as we got close to the summit, we passed a great look-out where we could look almost straight down to Ethan Pond. IF ONLY we could get there from here...
Val on the summit of Mt Willey. This is our third time here and really just the first time we could see the view.
Click here to see Tim's panorama from the Mt Willey viewpoint
We'd forgotten, or repressed, how steep the trip down Mt Willey is. We remembered the ladders (seen below) but to be quite blunt, they are the easiest part of the entire descent. This was the longest mile and the lowest morale point of the trip. The full packs were really causing extra strain on our knees and the going was very slow because Valerie doesn't do well on loose scree even when she's not wearing a big pack.
Arriving at the Ethan Pond Trail sign was like a gift! The combination of a snack and knowing-that-we-didn't-need-to-hike-downwards-anymore gave us renewed energy. We made short work of the relatively flat trail. The bog bridges made for really quick hiking.
We arrived at the pond just before sunset. We were about an hour behind what we'd forecast. The sun was beaming just beautifully on our end of the pond and on the cliffs of Mt Willey. There were several people already staying in the shelter, and two groups besides us in the tent sites.
We quickly grabbed a tent site and set up the tent. Then Tim went back to the pond to pump water while Valerie played homemaker in the tent and got the food over to the cooking/kitchen area for dinner. It was pitch black by the time that dinner was cooked. Considering that "cooking dinner" consisted of pouring boiling water into an envelope, you wouldn't think it would take too long either. Soon, we were cleaned up and Tim had hung the bear bag. This is something to consider if you're going to the AMC tent sites off-season - the bear box was not available since there was no caretaker. We were very glad that we'd brought the bag as a backup.
The skies were perfectly clear that night, which made it cold but beautiful. The sky was just full of stars and we saw a large meteor streak across. We had no trouble sleeping due to cold, but started to get a bit sore after too many hours lying down. Of course, by 8PM, it had been dark for more than an hour, and we don't have a campfire, so we go into our sleeping bags. And then the sun doesn't come up until about 7AM, so that's 11 hours which is just too long in the tent. Here's a picture of us in the tent in the morning. It was 32 degrees inside and about 20 degrees outside.
Click here to see Tim's panorama of Ethan Pond in the morning
On the hike out, we had a wonderful walk along the Ethan Pond trail. We got great views of Mt Willey, saw a spruce grouse, and walked on many, many bog bridges. We stopped at Thoreau Falls where we met our first other hikers of the day. They helped us get our only photo together.
Tim became obsessed with this little knoll. We need to figure out how to get there.
On the walk through Zealand Notch, we saw this great pile of boulders. Then, of course, the entire valley. This must have been gorgeous a couple weeks ago, but almost every leaf is gone now.
We stopped at Zealand Hut on the trip back. Here's the view from the front porch, and then some pictures of Zealand Pond.
