INCH Hike: Abraham and Ellen

1342. Abraham and Ellen (05/30/26)

Hikers (0):
Distance: 11 miles
Rating: 4 difficulty, 8 beauty
Park info: Green Mountain National Forest near Warren, VT

Write-up by Steve -- Pictures by Steve

This wasn't originally going to be an Occasional hike. However, since Christina was already in town and no one (from Occasional) was expected, I proposed taking advantage of having two cars and doing this hike as an end-to-end segment of the Long Trail. I had to do this either way since the two main peaks are the highest points of two Vermont counties, and my goal for the trip was to "close out" Vermont.

As a bonus, Christina's brother (Jonathan T) and niece were interested in the hike. I was concerned that the parking lots for this popular hike would be full later in the day and we'd be coming in four cars (environment, be damned!). Jonathan T suggested doing the hike from North to South (the opposite of my plan) because the northern parking lot (where we'd ditch one car) was smaller. As it turned out, our four cars were the only ones at Lincoln Gap at 9am, where we then piled into Jonathan's Tesla and headed north for the start of the hike at Appalachian Gap.

We passed a few parking areas near the expected main lot, so we knew things would be fine. It was a much smaller lot, but we still had plenty of space even on a Saturday at 9:45am. All my fears were for naught, possibly because it had rained/snowed the prior night and the weather was not initially forecast to be good.

In our excitement to start the hike, we immediately set off on the wrong trail, which was a connector to the lower parking area. We sensed this quickly and were soon on the correct route. The trail was wet and muddy for most of the way--until it became wet and snowy.

Civilized hiking

There were a few fun spots early in the hike with via ferrata rungs to get up steep slippery rocks. I hadn't expected that. But the difficult part was trying to jump on stones and the sides of the trail to prevent submerging boots into the many water hazards.

The wet snow begins

While it did not rain, the snow on the bushes and branches got everyone wet. I resisted putting on a raincoat until after reaching Mt. Ellen (about half way) by which time I was soaked. Oh well. Mt. Ellen is the highest point (4081 ft) on this segment of trail and the ridge stays relatively high all the way to Mt. Abraham, so there was enough snow for the rest of the way to give a nice wintery feel despite the low altitude.

Looking toward Cutts Peak

There were many minor peaks along the way where I stopped to go slightly off-trail to touch the highest points. That included backtracking a quarter mile when I overshot Cutts Peak. Ran into Jonathan and Charlotte soon after that at Castle Rock-Sugarbush Peak, which takes its name from the two ski resorts below it. This is the opposite of most of the cases, where the ski resort is named after the peak.

Mt Abraham from near Lincoln Peak

Anyway, they'd later pass me for the last time when I was under the viewing platform at Lincoln Peak, recovering a geocache. I was going to tell them not to wait for Christina if they needed to run off, but they didn't walk to the platform and I never caught up to them after that.

Views from Mt Abraham's treeless summit

Not too far after Lincoln Peak was Mt. Abraham, the highlight of the hike since its bald peak has great views, unlike most of the tree-filled Vermont summits. From here, it was a steep downhill trail all the way to the cars. When I finally reached the parking lot, there were many more vehicles, but Jonathan and Charlotte were long gone. I'd forgotten Christina's clan were seeing plenty of each other at various graduation events over two weeks, so this wasn't the precious family bonding opportunity I'd imagined. They were just out for a good hike--that's the spirit.

I was happy to get out of wet clothes, but just as I was about to drop trou to complete the process, two families with five young children came out of the woods for a long, long discussion nearby. I walked around the parking lot, reading all the trailhead signs (many trails cross here), waiting for them to leave.

The upper parking lot is half full--the two nearest vehicles are mine and Christina's

Eventually got my chance to change and then sat in my warm rental car awaiting Christina's triumphant return. Was happy to knock out this critical pair of VT highpoints. Only four more to go.