|

July 17, 2013 / Comments (0)

Mount Abraham

Written by:

Allison is the founder of trailtosummit.com which she began as a way to track and share her first round of the NH 4000 Footers. Now on round 5 (the first round for her dog Ruckus) she has been honored to have taken part of many people’s firsts. She is an experienced trail maintainer, speaker, and passionate member of the outdoor community. In New England, Allison enjoys trekking along the highest peaks, bushwhacking to less traveled areas, and has a fondness for sunrise and sunset trips. Outside of New England Allison has also thru hiked the John Muir Trail and explored mountains in the German and Austrian Alps, Israel, and the Azores. Her goal is to share her passion for hiking and backpacking with others, especially with women, to inspire them to experience the freedom of the trail!

During the week of July 4th, I had made the trek to Maine, beginning my quest to hike Maine 4000-footers. We successfully hiked seven of the eight peaks we planned, despite the rain. We made a tough call whether to hike Mount Abraham and from the title of this post, I’m sure you can figure out what happened. The week after those three rainy days of hiking were spent watching the weather reports. When it was close enough to be fairly certain (the day before) I knew we were smart to save “Abram” for later.

If hiking the Fire Warden Trail, there are two major stream crossings before you get to the actual trailhead. This adds a half mile to each end of the hike. The bridges crossing the streams had washed out. Be prepared to wade through these!

We decided to wear our water shoes to the trail and then prep our feet after the crossings. The first stream was ankle deep and the second went right below my knee. I would avoid this hike in high water.

Once you reach the trailhead, it’s four miles to the top! The trail starts off very easy, with barely noticeable elevation gain. You will cross a logging road. Just continue straight. There’s a cairn to mark it as well.

We weren’t prepared for the six additional water crossings on the trail that the Maine Mountain Guide or any trail reports failed to mention. Some were more straightforward than others and all were rock hopable (is that a real word??) A couple took some very careful planning as there were routes where the rocks were just out of reach or covered with wet moss. With trekking poles and helping hands, we made it across. The grand total comes out to sixteen crossings round trip. Phew!

After you reach the campsite, the trail gets steep! It was in the high 80’s and hot! I think for this hike we didn’t feel as overheated as the Bigelow Range because there was a slight breeze from time to time. Maybe we just got used to the oppressive heat.




When we made it above treeline we stopped for lunch. We knew we needed to refuel before the summit. The cool breeze and the dark chocolate sea salt almond chocolate improved our state.

photo by Ann West

I am so incredibly glad we saved Abraham for this weekend instead of trying to hike it with Sugarloaf and Spaulding. It’s a challenging hike, but the views made it so worth it!

The whole crew!

On the hike down we made really good time. Once we got toward the end of the hike we weren’t going to stop for anything! We had brought a change of clothes and were looking forward to a dunk in the water!

It was absolutely freezing, but we still went under. It felt so incredibly refreshing! It was also great not to smell on our four hour drive home. I highly recommend doing this!

Last modified: November 28, 2014

Join the discussion