Hiked by: Tim and Valerie on September 2, 2006 - An "out and back" from the Ethan Pond summer parking lot. Added bonus: Tim broke his hand last week, and it's not in a cast, just a splint. Tim's job is to climb the mountain without using his left hand at all (no hiking pole, and no using it to scramble over rocks or up the ladders). Oh, and T.S. Ernesto is bearing down on NH later this afternoon.
Conditions: Got a relatively late start for us. Arrived at the trailhead about 9am. Due to the long Labor Day weekend, the parking lot was already very busy. We started up the Ethan Pond Trail (which is also the AT). We've done this trail twice before - both in the snow, and one of those times we had full packs. It seemed a bit easier on dry ground with day packs! Also, we laughed to each other because we hadn't known about all the stone stairs built into the hills on this trail. Apparently, they have always been under much snow when we've been there.
We reached the intersection of Ethan Pond Trail & Willey Range Trail and stopped for a quick snack. Then, we started up. And up. And up. We knew that the trail would be steep, and it was! We made our way - slowly but surely - up the trail, then came to the "ladders" that we had read about. Eleven flights of ladders, made out of logs and 2x8's, nailed into the side of the mountain. It was intimidating on the way up, and as we talked to others on the trail, it seemed no one was looking forward to the trip back down those ladders.
At the top, we sat amongst the short little pine trees and put on our Gore-Tex coats, hats and mittens. We ate lunch at the cairn with a group of people who had met on an AMC-sponsored hike to the Dolomites in Italy. They were going down over Field and Avalon and out to Crawford Depot.
There's a small outlook with a big view just a few yards off the summit, and we stopped there for five minutes to take some pictures and talk with a solo hiker who happened to be sitting there enjoying the 35mph winds. We could hardly hold the camera still to take the pictures, and if Valerie concentrated on the camera too much, then she lost her footing. :-)
The trip down was slow, as usual, but not as bad as we'd anticipated. The steep section was not that long, so our knees didn't take too much pounding. The "ladders" were interesting going down, but not bad. We made it to the Ethan Pond trail, and then it was easy walking the rest of the way to the car.
Notes on the pictures below: the 5th picture shows the Presidentials from the outlook on Mt Willey. If you look closely at the tallest mountain in the picture, you can see the smoke from the Mt Washington Cog Railway. The mountains between us and that include Webster, Jackson, Pierce, Eisenhower, Franklin and Monroe. The 6th picture is the view of Mt Willey from the parking lot.