We started at Crawford Notch around 8:10. We were joined by several guys heading to Willey via Field. We headed to Tom via Field, so Laurie could do a little peakbagging! 😀
We met and talked with Steve as we hiked up to Field. He was at Ground Zero that horrible morning, and he told us how lucky he was to be alive. Field was Steve’s first 48! Way to go Steve, keep it up! 😀
We stopped briefly at Avalon to admire the views. What a nice little peak! I’m glad I took the short side trip up there!
A little while later, we were at the top of Field. There were similar views from here. We congratulated Steve and headed down to field, accompanied by Jim who had just summitted Field from Willey. So off we went, chatting as we walked, about various things.
We reached the junction for Tom and headed up the last half mile. We found the true summit after a little exploring and started setting up the flag around 11:30. We lashed metal tent poles to a dead tree and prayed that the tree would hold up! It did. Thanks to Jim for helping!
The winds were moderate, and the flag blew quite briskly, but we never had a problem. There was a constant stream of people coming up to this relatively easy peak (my first 115’er way back when), and we greeted them and discussed the reasons we were there. Many were aware of the event, but many were not. I tried to give everyone a card. One of the participants from years past on Tom showed up too, which was great!
Around 1:30 the rains came, and we donned jackets to ride out the windy blasts. Soon it stopped, but started right up again, so we broke down the gear and packed it in. Just as we were leaving, a group of 7 people arrived, and were a little disappointed to not see the flag, but we talked with them for a few minutes and handed out the rest of our cards.
It rained a little more off and on, but generally began to clear up as we headed out.
As an expirement, I brought a small telsecope (see pics) and tried to spot distant summits. This was not terribly successful, as the base of the scope was not tall enough to get over the small trees on Tom, so I tried to build a makeshift structure to raise the scope. This helped a little bit. A scope would have been better if we were above tree line (and if it was less cloudy). We did manage to catch 8 summits: Jackson, Carrigain, Pierce, Field, N/S Twin, Garfield and Lafayette. Big binoculars were great last year, but they are not as steady as a telescope. Maybe next year a spotting scope on a monopod ??
We headed back to the KOA and had a 2nd night of great fun with the crew!
NEVER FORGET!!!!!
