danno
New member
This is a re-attempt TR for a trip this past sunday (3/11/07) on Mount Abraham in Maine.
On 1/20/2007 I set out with a friend Pete at the trailhead of Mt Abraham. We were able to park our car right at the trailhead. yea! This was a cold day (-5 close to the summit, and 60+ mph winds). We decided about 1/10 mile from the summit to bag going to the summit and go back down as the going was too slow with the deep snow above treeline, and the weather was too severe on the ridge heading towards the summit. Any mistake could have been a major problem. (Note, this was the same day the hiker got lost on Lafayette, harsh conditions).
Photos of the 1/20/2007 trip are here:
http://sopomedia.com/trips/2007/abraham_01-20-2007/
Fast forward to Sunday 3/11/07. We decided to re-attempt the mountain, and were successful this day, though the work was much harder than we had planned.
To begin with, the road to the trailhead had turned into a snowmobile trail. Though I have 4wd, I only attempted about 100 yards of this in the car before backing up. So, we started 3 miles away from trailhead (based on my gps reading of where the trailhead was on the 1/20 trip).
We got to the trailhead after about an hour. The unbroken trail was crusty wet and heavy snow up to the cabin. With my msr wings on I was sinking only about 6-8 inches down, but with the weight of the snow on top of the show for each step it made for slow going. It took longer than we expected to get to the cabin. Saw some tracks that almost looked like they came from a disney movie. I think they were a fox, not sure though. See photos link below and let me know what you think.
From the cabin up to the end of the trees, the snow was much dryer, so it wasn't as difficult because of the heavy snow, though we were still dealing with some deep snow. There were a lot of moose tracks on the trail almost the whole way to the end of the trees. Lots of tracks, many 'bedding down' places, and if you are a seller of moose poop, come here to get it cause there's a lot of it
.
As with our previous attempt, there were deer tracks that went all the way up to the summit. I was very surprised at seeing this. The moose tracks and bedding were up around 3500 feet (a guess), and the deer tracks continued on beyond that. We figured that the deer must be a reincarnated hiker enjoying sunrises on the summit.
Once above treeline, the going was much easier. Less snow then our last trip, and much of it was crusty and easier to navigate then below treeline. We got up to the summit, enjoyed the view for a short while, took a few photos, then headed on down.
Nothing exciting on the way down. We cruised as fast as we could to get back to our car. It was starting to get dark as we left the trailhead, and we started using flashlights not long after. We did surprise some snowmobilers with our flashlights when they came up to us (we weren't using them yet, but would be within few minutes of seeing the sledders.) We flashed our lights so they would see us.
We got back to our car at 8:24pm (we started around 9am). We were pretty exhausted. 14 miles through some heavy snow. A nice warm day (just polypro on top except above treeline). A great day for a long hike.
photos of 3/11/2007 hike are here:
http://sopomedia.com/trips/2007/Abraham_03-11-2007/
On 1/20/2007 I set out with a friend Pete at the trailhead of Mt Abraham. We were able to park our car right at the trailhead. yea! This was a cold day (-5 close to the summit, and 60+ mph winds). We decided about 1/10 mile from the summit to bag going to the summit and go back down as the going was too slow with the deep snow above treeline, and the weather was too severe on the ridge heading towards the summit. Any mistake could have been a major problem. (Note, this was the same day the hiker got lost on Lafayette, harsh conditions).
Photos of the 1/20/2007 trip are here:
http://sopomedia.com/trips/2007/abraham_01-20-2007/
Fast forward to Sunday 3/11/07. We decided to re-attempt the mountain, and were successful this day, though the work was much harder than we had planned.
To begin with, the road to the trailhead had turned into a snowmobile trail. Though I have 4wd, I only attempted about 100 yards of this in the car before backing up. So, we started 3 miles away from trailhead (based on my gps reading of where the trailhead was on the 1/20 trip).
We got to the trailhead after about an hour. The unbroken trail was crusty wet and heavy snow up to the cabin. With my msr wings on I was sinking only about 6-8 inches down, but with the weight of the snow on top of the show for each step it made for slow going. It took longer than we expected to get to the cabin. Saw some tracks that almost looked like they came from a disney movie. I think they were a fox, not sure though. See photos link below and let me know what you think.
From the cabin up to the end of the trees, the snow was much dryer, so it wasn't as difficult because of the heavy snow, though we were still dealing with some deep snow. There were a lot of moose tracks on the trail almost the whole way to the end of the trees. Lots of tracks, many 'bedding down' places, and if you are a seller of moose poop, come here to get it cause there's a lot of it
.As with our previous attempt, there were deer tracks that went all the way up to the summit. I was very surprised at seeing this. The moose tracks and bedding were up around 3500 feet (a guess), and the deer tracks continued on beyond that. We figured that the deer must be a reincarnated hiker enjoying sunrises on the summit.
Once above treeline, the going was much easier. Less snow then our last trip, and much of it was crusty and easier to navigate then below treeline. We got up to the summit, enjoyed the view for a short while, took a few photos, then headed on down.
Nothing exciting on the way down. We cruised as fast as we could to get back to our car. It was starting to get dark as we left the trailhead, and we started using flashlights not long after. We did surprise some snowmobilers with our flashlights when they came up to us (we weren't using them yet, but would be within few minutes of seeing the sledders.) We flashed our lights so they would see us.
We got back to our car at 8:24pm (we started around 9am). We were pretty exhausted. 14 miles through some heavy snow. A nice warm day (just polypro on top except above treeline). A great day for a long hike.
photos of 3/11/2007 hike are here:
http://sopomedia.com/trips/2007/Abraham_03-11-2007/
