Ethan Pond & Mount Willey Talus: 7/2/24

Last weekend avid bushwhacker Steve Mason stopped by the store and showed me pictures of an amazing climb he and Gavin Brown made up a steep gully that splits the huge rock slab on the SW side of Mount Willey. The gully, which looks like a classic eroded dike, can be readily seen from nearby points to the west. After concluding their roped ascent of the 45-degree gully, they bushwhacked through dense scrub to the summit of Mount Willey, just beating the rain that moved in around lunchtime.

Though the gully climb is way out of my league, Steve's report inspired me to head out to the SW flank of Mount Willey and bushwhack to two talus slopes with sweeping views over the eastern Pemigewasset Wilderness.  Years ago I made a couple of trips to the lowest elevation talus slope on this side of Willey, but the ones I was aiming for are two to three hundred feet higher and promised wider views.

Before heading up the Kedron Flume Trail, I poked around the site of the infamous Willey Slide that fell on August 28, 1826, taking the lives of the Samuel Willey family and their hired hands.

Nearly two centuries later, the track of the Willey Slide is completely revegetated, but its course can still be discerned when looking up from the floor of the Notch. From this angle looking across Willey Pond it is seen as a dark line above the left side of the large building.

Tradition holds that these rocks, marked by a sign, "Willey Boulders," were what split the slide above the Willey's house, leaving it undamaged. It is possible that the Willey family left the house in an attempt to reach a "refuge hut" they had built after witnessing two earlier, smaller slides. "This strange action of the slide in the sparing of the house and the destruction of its 9 inmates when all might have been saved had they but remained inside, gives to the story a most peculiar pathos," wrote Rev. Guy Roberts in his 1923 booklet, The Willey Slide: Its History, Legend and Romance.

 

The jumbled track of the Willey Slide just above the Willey House site.

In his Geologic Summary for the Surficial Geologic Map of the Crawford Notch 7.5 minute quadrangle, geologist Brian Fowler noted that "Deposits above the house site display many of the surficial features typical of such debris avalanches including levees, chutes. and lineal boulder trains. all oriented parallel to the direction of downslope movement . It seems the home of the unfortunate Willey Family lay between two debris levees that channeled debris to either side of the house." The small ridge-like formations known as debris flow levees are indeed prominent alongside the slide track in the area above the Willey House site.

The lower mile of the Kedron Flume Trail ascends by switchbacks at mostly moderate grades, with gravelly footing.

 

The cascade at Kedron Flume.

South end of Webster Cliffs from the brook crossing at Kedron Flume.

After the crossing, the Kedron Flume Trail becomes steep and rough.

This steep slab was wet, but offered good grip.

On to the Ethan Pond Trail/Appalachian Trail.  I passed a couple of solo NoBo hikers in the next section of trail.

Rocky footing as the trail starts its climb to the height-of-land south of Mount Willey.

I made a fairly short but thick bushwhack to a tiny tarn tucked in the forest at the base of Mount Willey. This is sometimes called Lucy's Pond, in honor of Ethan Allen Crawford's wife, who was the real author of the classic History of the White Mountains.

Bog bridges lead the way across the high plateau that holds Ethan Pond.

All was quiet at Ethan Pond at my midday arrival. To my surprise, I stirred up a Great Blue Heron, which flapped ponderously to the west end of the pond and alighted atop a prominent tree.

This high mountain pond, with its distant view of the Twin Range, is one of the gems of the eastern Pemi region. The pond was, of course, named after Ethan Allen Crawford, the legendary pioneer of Crawford Notch who first came upon it in 1829, and returned in the ensuing years to fish and hunt. Its other name, Willey Pond, references the mountain at whose base it lies. On its north side the pond is enclosed by a long western arm of Mount Willey.

There was nobody in the AMC-managed shelter above the pond, but the caretaker was "in."

The layout for the campsite.

I began my whack northward towards my target talus slope at easy grades through prickly conifers.

Once the terrain steepened, the going got rougher.

Gnarly terrain on the final approach to the talus, necessitating a slow pace and careful attention to footing.

The view when I first emerged at the base of this steep strip of broken rock.

Looking up the strip to a wild cliff above. This seems to be a combination of talus slope and landslide/debris avalanche. It appears as a slide in older aerial photos, and the upper half is partly to mostly revegetated with scrubby growth.

Looks like there might be a good seat over there, partway up.

Best seat in the house!

Mount Carrigain and the sprawling ridges of Mount Hancock are nicely centered over Ethan Pond.

Off to the right, Whaleback Mountain, Bondcliff's south spur, Bondcliff and Mount Bond.

After lounging for a long spell on my rock seat, I made the short scramble up to the top of the open rocks.

 

Above here it has the look of a revegetated slide.

A "slide-y" look underfoot.

 

 

 

 

An even more commanding view from the top.

Wild country stretching all the way across to Mount Bond.

Ethan Pond.

Descending, slowly and carefully.

Since I was in the neighborhood, on the way back I decided to try and climb up to a wide talus slope close by to the SE. Approach from the bottom was impossible, as I encountered huge rocks and gaping caverns that reminded me of The Subway in King Ravine.

Not going up that way, either.

After some weaving I worked out a passable route around and up to a point on the western edge of the talus.

From a big flat-topped boulder I found a view south to the Nancy Range...

...and another vista out over Ethan Pond and the eastern Pemi.

What a jumble!

A stony visage keeps watch on the cliff above.

Evening at Ethan Pond.

A peek at Landslide Gully on Mount Webster, from the Kedron Flume Trail.

 A winter view of the SW face of Mount Willey taken from frozen Ethan Pond. The gully ascended by Steve Mason and Gavin Brown is right-center on the large slab to the right. The slide-like strip I visited is towards the left, with a rounded bottom, and the wide talus slope is in the center of the picture.