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Mt Tom - page 2 of 5

But I had hiked this trail before on my way to Mts Avalon and Field, so I had a pretty good feel of where the trail was going. None-the-less, I began to pay more careful attention to where I was going, searching for any near or distant blazes to ensure that I was going the right way.

At the junction of the Avalon and A-Z Trails, I stopped to rest and have a snack. I wondered how hard the trail would be to follow from here on. At least I'd been on the Avalon Trail before; the A-Z Trail was unknown territory. I soon found out. A short distance from the trail junction, the A-Z Trail plunged very steeply down into a ravine and up the other side. From then on, I had to look very carefully for the yellow blazes on the trees. I lived for those blazes. Sometimes, I was lucky and could see the next blaze from a distance. Usually, I just followed my hunches.

Unfortunately, this didn't always work. In several places, there were no blazes to be seen, nor were there any clear indication of which way the trail went. At these times, I had to set out from the last blaze in what I thought was the right direction and keep checking the trees for any signs of a yellow paint splotch and the snow for any signs of previous foot traffic. If I didn't find another blaze after a while, I'd return to the previous one and try a different direction. Usually, while this was happening, I'd also end up postholing, snowshoes and all, or plunging into a spruce trap. When I finally found the next blaze, I was elated. Then I'd start the process all over again.

Finally, I came to a point next to a snowy brook bed where I felt it was possible that the trail might cross over to the other side. Oddly, blazes on both sides of a tree directly in front of me seemed to indicate otherwise. If the direction the blaze on the other side of the tree faced indicated the direction of the trail, it went up a very steep hill away from the brook. But that didn't look likely. The second most likely direction was straight ahead, so I took off my pack and followed what seemed like a trail for a short distance, all the time looking for a way to veer off to the left to meet the possible path up the steep hill. I tried a few different routes, then gave up and headed back to my pack. After eating a piece of cheese and taking a drink of water, I tried going straight ahead again, but without looking for a way to branch off to the left. Soon, I thought I had found it, and continued on, waiting for a confirming blaze. But after climbing at least 200 vertical feet uphill, I gave up and went back down.

Wondering whether I might have to give up, I thought again about crossing the brook. But I didn't, because the paint blaze on the other side of that tree clearly faced in the direction of the trail. So I tried the steep hill. I never made it up because it was way too steep for my snowshoes to handle. I fell, barely managing to escape a sliding into a tree trunk and getting hurt. Dejected, I decided to take a photo of the blaze mark because I thought it would be as far as I end up going. At least I'd have the last yellow blaze photo to show for my efforts.

Junction of the A-Z Trail and Avalon Trail. After this point, the trail became all the more difficult to follow and I had to use all the trail-finding skills I could muster to continue on in the right direction.

Avalon A-Z trail sign.jpg (288899 bytes)

The "last yellow blaze". Actually, I took this photo expecting to be able to go no further because I couldn't find the trail after this point. But I finally found it across the brook bed. There was no indication that the trail crossed the brook here.

blaze.jpg (235935 bytes)

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