Willey-Field-Tom Loop | 8/9/26
- Izzy Risitano
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
With remarkably few trails left to hike in the Pemigewasset and just one friend working on the 48 with Willey, Tom, and Field left— I had to seize the opportunity to get some long miles in with Willow.
While 16.5 miles long, I felt optimistic about a loop of Willey Range Trail, AZ, and Ethan Pond thanks to the overwhelming portion of retired railroad. Perhaps more than any other trail in the Whites, Ethan Pond is a trail runner's delight. It’s beautiful and straightforward, but still full of rowdy bog bridges to make things interesting.
From the upper Ethan Pond Trailhead, where I could start to break even on my annual state park plate, we started uphill right away, traversing steeply past Ripley Falls Spur and later Kedron Flume before reaching the start of Willey Range Trail. Truly, no matter how many times I climb to the shelf above Willey’s incredibly bare face, I always forget how steep it is.
With the humidity relentlessly clinging on, Willow and I breathed heavily but steadily until the base of the ladders- where I hadn’t been in some 6 years. Thought it was Willow’s first time and my second; it may as well have been brand new collectively, as I didn’t recall a third of the rungs being rotted out and broken.
On more than one occasion, I paused for quite a while, playing out how I’d traverse from the left ladder to the right, with the two top rungs missing. It was evident many hikers had gone through similar thoughts, as the surrounding rocks and limited dirt paths were heavily eroded.
Past the ladders, we finally broke the humidity a bit as a breeze relieved the effort. The final climb to Willey was very easy by comparison. Willow and I took a much-needed break up top to fuel.
As we cruised to Field and then Tom, we saw many hikers, notably a lot of families. The crowds certainly thinned after our two uneventful next summits, as we dropped down AZ Trail.
I’d heard a lot of horrible things about this trail from the forums and whatnot, but I was pleasantly surprised by it. Although the rocks were slick and sweating in the heat just like us, the woods were lush and beautiful the whole way through. There were a few moments after the second fire road crossing, 192A according to Gaia, that were swampy and tedious, but overall not what I took from the trail.
When we popped back out onto rail grades, I was happy to report to Willow we’d be smooth sailing for the rest of the afternoon- a good thing since it was growing late.
After a brief pit stop at Zealand Hut, we carried on through one of my favorite trail segments in the entire White Mountains- the Whitewall cut through Zealand Notch. Not a pass through goes by that I escape the complete disbelief that a grade like this has stood the test of time.
After Whitewall, the junctions became less familiar until they were completely unfamiliar past Shoal Pond, the furthest I’d been down Ethan Pond before. Save for a few boggy bridged sections that required careful balance on my trekking poles, the trail was pleasant and easy to maintain 20-minute miles on.
As the night grew closer, I still couldn’t resist going down to check out Ethan Pond, which was well worth the extra couple of minutes. The scarred backside of Willey surprised me for whatever reason, as did the quiet serenity of Ethan Pond.
Coming out on a high after the views, it wasn’t long until we hummed down the rest of the descent to the car. We saw a few cheery groups going in and a handful of thru-hikers as well. Willow and I, however, couldn’t have been happier to end our single-day trek with some Rek-Lis and Super Secret Ice Cream.
Final stats:
16.18 miles
4,048 gain
-1 Willow living in New England :'(
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