Mount Abraham: July 3, 2015

Mountain: Mount Abraham
Elevation: 4,006 (Vermont's 5th Tallest, New England's 64th Tallest)
Route: Battell Trail
Mileage: 5.8 miles round trip
Arya's Take:Uh, Dad?  These rocks go...straight up.  What do I do?

I have to admit, when looking at the peak-bagging I wanted to do with Arya, Abraham was a bit of an afterthought.  Sure, I remember hiking it in 2012, and had vague memories of what the trail and summit were like, but I really have to issue an apology.  I mean, the main reason that I disregarded it was that the mountain itself is only 4,006 feet, so it barely qualifies, and there were, I was sure, other mountains that would be more worth our time.

And there are, don't get me wrong.  But when it became clear that I had an extra day off to play with over the 4th of July weekend (before we headed to Maine and I had a 5K to run), I decided to, for better or for worse, get Abraham out of the way.  It also helped that the forecast was sunny and in the 70s.

So Arya and I prattled off over the Appalachian Gap again, and I was again struck with just how much time I seem to be spending in the Mad River Valley since we moved to Vermont.  There were easier ways to get to the Battell Trailhead in Lincoln (like, for example, the Lincoln Gap road), but since we were in my Prius and the Lincoln Gap road is dirt, I figured the App Gap was the way to go.

We also got kiiiiiind of a later start than I anticipated, due mainly to the fact that I got a cluster headache as I was trying to get up that morning and wanted to die for about 3 hours.  What are cluster headaches, I hear you ask?  Basically, 12 years ago I started getting horrendously bad migraines, with no apparent trigger or cause, and they were so bad that I couldn't move or think or anything while they persisted.  Several doctor's visits (and one STAT CT scan!) later, they diagnosed me with cluster headaches, which they told me a) will attack with no warning, b) will come in bunches (hence the name) and c) have no known cause.  Not only that, but they'd disappear eventually, only to return later, again with no rhyme or reason.  So...hooray!  They're back, and they don't respond to drugs.  I got one on July 3, and it took until 12:30 for us to actually get out on the trail.

Which worried me slightly, since even though Abraham is a smaller mountain, heading out on a hike after noon set us up for potential trouble, since if something happened we wouldn't have that much time to do something about it.  Also since we needed to be back in Barre by 7:00 or so in order to pack the car and meet my fiancee so we could drive the 3 hours to Maine, so we didn't have too much of a margin for error.

But at any rate, we started off, and with some minor adjustments in Arya's pack, things went pretty well on the whole.  Moreso than usually Arya had a propensity to zigzag across the trail into the woods on either side, and once again looked back down the trail just enough to make me think that someone (or something) was following us.  The trail also proved to be more of a challenege than I remember, given that I did it on a whim in sneakers, I wasn't expecting it to be as slow going as it was.  We encountered several large groups, too (summer camps, I assumed), and that impacted our pace.  I mean, not a ton, and we still crushed book time, but it wasn't exactly my finest hour of hiking.

This became apparent when we reached the Battell Shelter at 2.1 miles, where some families were having lunch and Arya wanted desperately to say hello and to vacuum up any table scraps that might have fallen off the benches.  We'd reached the Long Trail, and the well-worn sign pointing us towards the Abraham summit was scratched enough that it was either 0.3 or 0.8 to the summit, and I was crestfallen when I realized it was 0.8.  That's how you know you're not at your best.

At any rate, we tramped off the the summit, walking along the southern edge of the Monroe Skyline amongst the scrubby evergreen trees, a brilliant blue sky above us.  The 0.8 proved to be just long enough for both Arya and I to start wondering where the summit was, and I was confronted suddenly with a memory of the first time I'd hiked Abraham that I'd apparently suppressed:  the scramble to the summit.

It came in a flash, recalling the 0.2 of straight-freaking-up rock climbing that you have to do to reach the top, hand-over-hand and plotting each tree branch and foot placement before you're done with your last.  It annihilated my sneakers (eventually wearing the heel to the point I had to replace them), and it presented the first time hiking that Arya had serious problems with continuing.  She was good for much of the scramble, but with some people heading down from the summit as we were heading up (side effect of our late start), we had a lot of waiting to do, and there were some rock faces that were sheer enough that I had to pick her up and carry her.  Thankfully, her new dog framepack has a handle for just such a purpose, and though she scowled at me for the indignity, it was the best way for us to continue.  Eventually, though, it flattened out and we were above treeline.

It really amazes me that two mountains in such proximity could have such different summits based on their height and the perceived difficulty as Mounts Abraham and Ellen.  Ellen is, after all, nearly 90 feet taller than Abraham, and yet, is not only wooded on top, but so insignificant compared to the surrounding terrain that I wandered past it without noticing when I hiked it first.  Abraham, on the other hand, has spectacular views in all directions, showing off the Breadloaf wilderness, Lake Champlain, and the rest of the Monroe Skyline.  Not bad for the 4th-shortest 4,000 footer in all of New England.

Really, Abraham makes you earn it, and it feels like much more of an accomplishment when you're on top.  Yes, it's small, but the Battell Trail is not what I would qualify as easy (or short), and the last little bit of sheer elevation gain gives you the impression that you're really up among the alpine.

None of this really mattered to Arya, who was mostly concerned with the other dogs on top, none of whom really wanted anything to do with her.  I tried to get her to drink, as the air was surprisingly stagnant above treeline and the direct sunshine made it seem much hotter than it probably was.  Couple with her whole "I'm a black dog with minimal sweat glands" thing, and Arya spent the first several minutes we were settled panting and pacing back and forth.

Eventually I discovered that the only way to get her to drink from the bowl was to hold it in front of her snout like a horse's feed-bag, and after that she drank for what seemed like forever.  After that she continued to be a bit of a pain in the ass on the summit, as she usually is, since when we reach them there's not a whole lot for her to do while I sit and try to eat some lunch.

On this occasion, though, we were a bit pressed for time, and I decided after about 20 minutes or so to pack up and head back down.  Not only was a concerned with getting back to the car and getting home, but it occurred to me that I hadn't done as much packing the night before as I probably should have, and so I'd need some time to finish before we all went to Maine.  It was also a good opportunity to test out my knee, since I'd been nervous about it buckling on me after we did Mount Ellen.  To be completely honest, part of me was kinf od hoping I'd fuck up my knee, so that I would have a valid excuse not to run the aforementioned 5K that I was signed up for two days thence (for which I had not trained a lick, because I am an idiot).  Thankfully, though, we had enough people immediately ahead of us on the rockiest descent that we had to take our time, which was good on my knee and better for Arya's apprehension.  The congestion got kind of bad once we reached the shelter on our way down, but thankfully most people apparently chose to hike up using the Long Trail, so once we turned back onto the Battell Trail we were good to go.

And i really apologize how these entries tend to lose steam once we get to the descent, but it's just that...I hate the descent.  I've talked about this before, but in climbing down, my mind starts to wander to what I want to do after we're done, and how good it's going to feel to sit in the car and take my boots off.  It was a lovely day, and Arya did really well with everything all things considered, but I really can't find much of anything interesting to say on the way down, unless something basically smacks me in the face.  My knee held up, Arya was dead asleep for the rest of the day (which, of course, was mostly spent in the car anyway), and we have another 4,000 footer in the books.  From here, though, the real fun begins, since now all we had left in Vermont was Mount Mansfield, and I'd started to put together a plan for one of, if not the, most ambitious day hikes we would ever do.  But that's for another entry or two (or three).

-M