Lance
New member
It was a great pleasure to climb Mt. Abraham in Maine on July 3 for the first time in probably 15 years and meet, at the summit, Dave and Chris Metsky and Audrey and Pat Sallese, who introduced us--my wife Peggy, 19-year-old-son Elias, and I--not only to their nice selves but also to this Web site. It was a particular pleasure to celebrate with champagne Dave's (and Chris's?) achievement of bagging the final New England 4,000-footer. Unfortunately, I missed recording the exact brand and vintage of champagne, but it was tasty even when warm.
It was a perfect day: weather and trail conditions, too (well, a bit wet in places). Driving in from Kingfield, the trailhead is a little hard to find--if you have a 20-year-old map, anyway. After 20 minutes of hiking, we crossed a logging road, where some cars were parked, so there is apparently a secret route to get closer to the mountain. A couple of trail maintainers whizzed by us going up as we began to descend, then going down as we got close to the trailhead. They had taken care of the couple of blowdowns that we had encountered as we ascended.
The old firewarden's (?) cabin 1.2 miles from the top I would be interested in knowing the history of. I was surprised to see it still standing. It was in bad shape 15 years ago and, I believe, it was in similar bad shape around 15 years before that when we first climbed Abraham--and had our summit tent flattened by a storm while we slept; we wound up crawling into the little stone shelter, with our 7-year-old, to dryly and snugly sleep well for the rest of the night. There is a grungy sleeping bag in it now. Would be interested in knowing the history of this shelter, too. To return to the cabin: It seems in slightly better shape than during my previous couple of well-spaced visits.
Of 12 adults we met on the summit during our hour or so there, we found seven shared the same Old College Tie. I'll let anyone care to guess which outdoorsy college this is. One couple had a month-old baby summiting.
At the end, I literally cooled my heels in the icy Rapid River, a fitting end to a 10-mile mountain hike in my 34-year-old hiking boots (many new soles, but only one heavily repaired upper; buy Italian boots).
Lance
It was a perfect day: weather and trail conditions, too (well, a bit wet in places). Driving in from Kingfield, the trailhead is a little hard to find--if you have a 20-year-old map, anyway. After 20 minutes of hiking, we crossed a logging road, where some cars were parked, so there is apparently a secret route to get closer to the mountain. A couple of trail maintainers whizzed by us going up as we began to descend, then going down as we got close to the trailhead. They had taken care of the couple of blowdowns that we had encountered as we ascended.
The old firewarden's (?) cabin 1.2 miles from the top I would be interested in knowing the history of. I was surprised to see it still standing. It was in bad shape 15 years ago and, I believe, it was in similar bad shape around 15 years before that when we first climbed Abraham--and had our summit tent flattened by a storm while we slept; we wound up crawling into the little stone shelter, with our 7-year-old, to dryly and snugly sleep well for the rest of the night. There is a grungy sleeping bag in it now. Would be interested in knowing the history of this shelter, too. To return to the cabin: It seems in slightly better shape than during my previous couple of well-spaced visits.
Of 12 adults we met on the summit during our hour or so there, we found seven shared the same Old College Tie. I'll let anyone care to guess which outdoorsy college this is. One couple had a month-old baby summiting.
At the end, I literally cooled my heels in the icy Rapid River, a fitting end to a 10-mile mountain hike in my 34-year-old hiking boots (many new soles, but only one heavily repaired upper; buy Italian boots).
Lance
