Mount Avalon and Mount Tom

Date: October 19, 2007
Trails: Avalon Trail --> Mount Avalon --> A-Z Trail --> Mt. Tom Spur --> Mount Tom

To kick off my blog, I'll start with a set of hikes I did in October of 2007 with my current roommate, Ben, and my roommate from college, Will.

Ben and I work together at a public accounting firm, and had just started work about a month before. We got to talking one Tuesday night about wanting to do a hike in New Hampshire, and before long, we had booked a hotel for that coming Saturday, found a third hiking companion, and were ready to head up for our first white mountains hiking experience.

We left early Saturday morning, packed the car, picked up Will, and headed straight to Crawford Notch to begin our weekend with a dual peak hike, Mount Avalon and Mount Tom. At 4,051 ft above sea level, Mount Tom is one of the smaller 4k peaks. Mount Tom itself is overgrown and isn't much to write home about when it comes to views, but coupled with Mount Avalon (just below at 3,442 feet) it makes for a great hike.

We started our way up, talking and having fun, until we reached our first river crossing. I look back on it now and laugh, but being relatively inexperienced hikers at that point, we weren't exactly sure how to proceed. We spent the next 5 minutes trying to figure out the best way to cross using rocks as stepping stones, before realizing it was a lost cause. Before long, our shoes were off and were walking through the water to cross the river.

We kept on our way until we got to a junction, one path leading up to the summit of Mount Avalon, the other leading to the summit of Mount Tom. Because it was closer, we decided to hit Mount Avalon first. After a small scramble up a steep rock face, we found ourselves on top of Mount Avalon, looking over Crawford Notch. For anyone who has even a remote interest in hiking, this is a perfect peak to start with - a good workout but not too hard, with amazing views, especially in the fall when the foliage is in season. Show to the right is Ben, Myself, and Will atop Mount Avalon.

We climbed back down the rock face and continued on towards the summit of Mount Tom. We had been told that there wasn't much to see atop Mount Tom, as much of it was overgrown with vegetation, but we decided that because it was one the list of 4000 footers, we might as well cross one off the list. Back then, I really had no intention of climbing all of the 4000 footers, but looking back now, I'm glad that we made that decision to knock off Mount Tom.

As we got to the peak of Mount Tom, it started to cloud over and drizzle a little. Nothing that was too big of a deal, so we kept onward and eventually made it to the summit. As we made it to the top, the sun started to break through and we were treated to a nice view of the white mountains around us. At the very least, it made for a nice picture (shown to the left).

That night, we went for a beer and wings at the 99 Restaurant, where we watched the Red Sox complete their sweep of the LA Angels in the ALDS. We woke up the next day for another hike - Arethusa Falls and Frankenstein Cliffs, which I will talk about in a later post.