![]() Red Tape No camping inside Crawford Notch State Park. It may be faster, however, to take interstate 93 instead, turning easterly onto route 3 to reach 302 at Twin Mountain, turning east there to reach the north end of Crawford Notch. If you're driving up from, say, Boston, you can get to Conway by taking Interstate 95 to Portsmouth and exiting onto the Spaulding Turnpike (a.k.a. From the tourist town of Conway, follow route 16 north until 302 diverges westward. Getting There The Willey Range is most often accessed from Crawford Notch State Park on U.S. The Avalon trail begins at the trailhead described above, climbs westward along a stream, then (at its junction with the A-Z trail) turns southwest to pass over its namesake peak on its way to Mt Field where it reaches the Willey Range Trail.įinally, the Kedron Flume Trail provides a steep and damp shortcut up the southeast slopes of Mt Willey. Mt Tom's summit is reached by the Mt Tom Spur from the col. The three 4000-footers of the range are often traversed in a day using the Willey Range Trail, which runs from the Appalachian Trail at the southern foot of Mt Willey, over Mts Willey and Field to the col with Mt Tom. The Mt Willard trail is a spur that climbs only one peak, but that peak possesses some of the best views in the range. On old maps the trailheads are separated by two hundred feet, but sometime in the last few decades the bottoms of the trails have merged. There is no practical distinction between the trailhead for the Avalon trail, in Crawford Notch just north of the park border, and the trailhead for the Mt Willard Trail. ![]() The Crawford House trailhead at the eastern end of the Avalon Trail is the most popular trailhead for this range. The other long east-west trail in this area is the A-Z Trail, which, starting from a short ways up the Avalon Trail, passes over the col between Mt Field and Mt Tom, and then continues west all the way to the north end of Zealand Notch. The Ripley Falls trailhead at its eastern end is one of the two primary access points for this range, since the Willey Range Trail begins near this trailhead. Trails and TrailheadsThe Appalachian Trail (consisting here of the Ethan Pond Trail) does not climb this range, but follows its southern border while running east from Zealand Notch past Ethan Pond into Crawford Notch. Both families ran inns and guided visitors up Mt Washington. The Crawford family first moved to the area in 1790 they were related by marriage to the Rosebrooks, who followed them in 1792. Crawford Notch was "discovered" in 1771 by a hunter named Timothy Nash, who was granted land in the notch in exchange for a promise to build a road. Mt Tom is named for Thomas Crawford, whose family lived in the notch that bears their name. Mt Field is named for Darby Field, first recorded ascentionist of Mt Washington. The phrase "the willies", meaning an eerie feeling, comes from this incident. (Samuel Willey's brother later claimed to have been visited by Samuel's ghost, who explained that the family went uphill away from rising floodwaters, rather than heading downhill to a shelter that they'd built the year before in case of landslides.) All perished (most buried, one apparently drowned, some never found), but rescuers found the house standing intact and the family dog alive and howling. One stormy night in August of 1826 the entire family of seven, plus two hired hands (David Nickerson and David Allen), fled their house, located near what is now called Avalanche Brook. Slides on Mt WilleyThe range is named for Mt Willey, which in turn was named for a family of homesteader/innkeepers. Within the range itself, slides and gullies can be found on Mts Willey and Willard. Frankenstein Cliff is the most famous of these, but is generally considered to lie just outside the Willey Range. The near-vertical sides of Crawford Notch are also home to a number of ice routes in winter. Thanks to well-maintained trails and ample parking in the Notch, these short and scenic hikes are very popular. The range does rise fairly steeply above Crawford Notch 3000 feet below, creating excellent viewpoints earning two spots on the list of 52 with a View, and giving Mt Willey the fourteenth-highest reduced spire measure in the northeastern U.S.A. ![]() ![]() The Willey Range is a small range, with only three 4000-footers, none passing treeline, in a compact group only about five miles long. The Willey Range lies on the west side of Crawford Notch, at the northeastern end of the largest enclave of the White Mountain National Forest and at the foot the Presidential Range. Overview Appalachian Mountains > White Mountains > Willey Range ![]()
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