Best Winter Route for Ellen and Abraham

[PamW]

Any advice regarding Battell versus the Long Trail for a traverse of Ellen and Abraham? Both appear to be packed out from trip reports. With the road walk to the LT summer trailhead, Battell appears to be slightly shorter. We will be headed back to Jericho VT afterwards and head in via the Jerusalem trail. I've done the LT in summer but neither side trail.

 

[bignslow]

Those were my trail conditions. Both trailheads were easy to find and there didn't appear to be much (any) traffic headed from the Battell junction on the LT towards Lincoln Gap. We hiked from Ellen to Abe so that we could finish the hike with some views. Both trails go through some fairly open woods near the bottom so they could be difficult to follow after a major dump (but there was a good amount of traffic recently and I assume the snowshoe trench will survive for a while). The biggest navigational challenges are near the ski area, where packed "slackcountry" ski tracks suck you towards the ski trails, but you can always re-join the actual trail at the summit(s).

Distances and gains: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D-2q0VMRTnRlld9OXyOkJCMQXwv88vFv83BCMJFL4yU/edit?usp=sharing

The "reverse" numbers are because a group was meeting us on Abe while another group was doing the whole ridge.

 

[SpencerVT]

I've done Battell in the winter and it wasn't bad. I would recommend that. However, I would make sure and have some good micro spikes and be prepared for ice. Once you get to the steeper sections there's undoubtedly going to be runoff from the thaw we are having and is going to cause the trails to be extremely ice right now, particularly in the steeper sections.

 

[PamW]

Thanks guys. We had a nice day on Saturday-- up Jerusalem over the Long Trail and down Battell. Car spot was not bad. Spikes all day, as there was a hard crust everywhere and only a few tricky spots with hard ice. Until the next snowfall, no need for snowshoes.