poison ivy
Well-known member
Dave hadn’t been hiking since November, so we decided to put his snowshoes to good use and hike Mount Ellen in Vermont before the trails close for mud season next week. It was already an absolutely gorgeous day as we headed up the Jerusalem Trail at 9:30 a.m.
For the first mile or so, we encountered no snow at all -- just lots of muddy spots interspersed with dry areas along the old woods road. We trudged through plenty of puddles and quickly found that it was warm enough for shorts on what would be a sunny & completely cloudless day. Even without the trees or flowers budding or birds singing, we found this trail to be just beautiful.
The second mile and a half of the Jerusalem Trail was will snow-covered, but in the morning we found it had a firm enough crust to be barebootable. But one step off the beaten path and we would post-hole past our knees. After a couple of times postholing, we decided to break out the snowshoes, which we left on for the rest of the day.
We reached the junction with the Long Trail at 11:30, after negotiating up the only slick and icy spot we’d see all day. We made a quick turn to the right and headed south along the ridge for the remaining 1.8 miles to Mount Ellen. We had a very difficult time following the Long Trail (as ridiculous as that sounds.) It’s either very sparsely blazed along the ridge or else we were just off the trail so often that we didn’t see them. At any point where it wasn’t clear exactly where the trail headed next, there were sets of footprints leading in every possible direction. After a while, we gave up trying to stick to the trail and just headed in the direction of Mt. Ellen, occasionally hitting small spruce traps.
The views along the ridge were absolutely terrific… we could see white-capped peaks to both the East and the West, as well as Camel’s Hump and Mt. Mansfield occasionally rising through the trees behind us. We met two hikers, the only hikers we saw all day, taking a break on the ridge. They both said they had some difficultly sticking to the trail as well.
As we neared the summit, we managed to confused about where the trail was headed again. Since we could see the ski slopes, we decided to just hike up the side of the slopes. Fortunately, the upper ski lift was not operational, so there was no one around who might have been bothered. Two members of the ski patrol zoomed by on snow mobiles and waved a hello, but that was it.
We reached the summit at 1:15 and celebrated with pictures and sandwiches before heading back to the Long Trail to head down. We started down the Long Trail, which was trashed with remnants of someone’s party, so I ended up adding eight beer cans and assorted junk to my pack. We soon found ourselves off the trail again in a maze of spruce traps, so we decided to head back to the ski slope to walk down the way we came up. This time, once we got back on the Long Trail we didn’t have any difficulty staying on the trail at all. We made it back to the Jerusalem Trail at 2:30, ready for our descent back to the car.
The really wonderful day got somewhat hellish as we walked the final 2.4 miles. The snow had become so soft it was like beach sand and we managed to posthole even with the snowshoes on. The lower the elevation, the worse it got and I managed to painfully roll my ankle a couple of times. I finally decided that if I was going to posthole, I’d rather do it in bareboots and found the going a little easier that way. We were both happy to reach the snowline and arrived back at the car at 4 p.m.
All and all it was a fantastic day. Mt. Ellen was my 55th 4k on the New England Fours list. Dave & I were trying to count and we think it was his 12th peak on that list… but he’s not really keeping track.
Pictures from our adventure can be found
here.
-- Ivy
For the first mile or so, we encountered no snow at all -- just lots of muddy spots interspersed with dry areas along the old woods road. We trudged through plenty of puddles and quickly found that it was warm enough for shorts on what would be a sunny & completely cloudless day. Even without the trees or flowers budding or birds singing, we found this trail to be just beautiful.
The second mile and a half of the Jerusalem Trail was will snow-covered, but in the morning we found it had a firm enough crust to be barebootable. But one step off the beaten path and we would post-hole past our knees. After a couple of times postholing, we decided to break out the snowshoes, which we left on for the rest of the day.
We reached the junction with the Long Trail at 11:30, after negotiating up the only slick and icy spot we’d see all day. We made a quick turn to the right and headed south along the ridge for the remaining 1.8 miles to Mount Ellen. We had a very difficult time following the Long Trail (as ridiculous as that sounds.) It’s either very sparsely blazed along the ridge or else we were just off the trail so often that we didn’t see them. At any point where it wasn’t clear exactly where the trail headed next, there were sets of footprints leading in every possible direction. After a while, we gave up trying to stick to the trail and just headed in the direction of Mt. Ellen, occasionally hitting small spruce traps.
The views along the ridge were absolutely terrific… we could see white-capped peaks to both the East and the West, as well as Camel’s Hump and Mt. Mansfield occasionally rising through the trees behind us. We met two hikers, the only hikers we saw all day, taking a break on the ridge. They both said they had some difficultly sticking to the trail as well.
As we neared the summit, we managed to confused about where the trail was headed again. Since we could see the ski slopes, we decided to just hike up the side of the slopes. Fortunately, the upper ski lift was not operational, so there was no one around who might have been bothered. Two members of the ski patrol zoomed by on snow mobiles and waved a hello, but that was it.
We reached the summit at 1:15 and celebrated with pictures and sandwiches before heading back to the Long Trail to head down. We started down the Long Trail, which was trashed with remnants of someone’s party, so I ended up adding eight beer cans and assorted junk to my pack. We soon found ourselves off the trail again in a maze of spruce traps, so we decided to head back to the ski slope to walk down the way we came up. This time, once we got back on the Long Trail we didn’t have any difficulty staying on the trail at all. We made it back to the Jerusalem Trail at 2:30, ready for our descent back to the car.
The really wonderful day got somewhat hellish as we walked the final 2.4 miles. The snow had become so soft it was like beach sand and we managed to posthole even with the snowshoes on. The lower the elevation, the worse it got and I managed to painfully roll my ankle a couple of times. I finally decided that if I was going to posthole, I’d rather do it in bareboots and found the going a little easier that way. We were both happy to reach the snowline and arrived back at the car at 4 p.m.
All and all it was a fantastic day. Mt. Ellen was my 55th 4k on the New England Fours list. Dave & I were trying to count and we think it was his 12th peak on that list… but he’s not really keeping track.
Pictures from our adventure can be found
here.
-- Ivy
