I'm a bit behind on TR's so I'm starting from the last and they're going to be short.

After Bob and I finished off ME Labor-day Weekend, I said I'd be wanting to start to finish
what was left in VT starting the weekend after Columbus weekend. He was good with that and as
it turned out, last Saturday was perfect. I figured we could get the longest, and only 2-fer, we
had. Ellen and Abraham.

A bit of back story to the planning of this. We'd always planned to traverse these 2. It meant
taking 2 cars but us old folk need all the help we can get. Traverse is always better than an out
and back. Or is it? I PM'd Bob when I saw the weather was going good but didn't know the
numbers for the hike. He got back to me with the numbers on Earthlink.net. It showed several
options. But the last one intrigued us. One traverse was 10.5 miles and 2300' of gain. But
we noticed at the bottom, an out and back from Lincoln Gap on the LT was 12.6 miles but only
1600' of gain. I did have a crude map to look at and since it appeared to be pretty flat,
those numbers may be right. Long story short...I posted this question on views and thanks to a
good slap in the face by Tim , we woke up and realized there's no way those numbers were
correct. That site is pretty darned good but this has to be one major type-O. I'm guessing it
should read 3600' of gain. But this is what we were looking at. Talk about being gullible.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ellozy/vt-40 ... ml#tocref5

What we opted for was a traverse starting in Lincoln Gap, over Abe and Ellen, then down the slopes
of Sugarbush north base. This turned out to be about 9.1 miles and 2700' of gain. But I loaded my tracks
on G.E., it said 8.3 and 2800'. Either way, pretty easy and quick.

And I finally got some clear views into NY. Plus, the Presi's, Fran. Ridge, and The Moose were clearly visible.

Bottom line.... 66 of 67 for Joe. 65 of 67 for Bob. SLACKER!

Cilck Pik for Pix

It's a little hard to tell but is it safe to say the foliage around there is getting to the brown stage? It was looking past peak last weekend already when I drove through the area.

I really enjoyed the Abraham part of this one. Was great as a day hike, winter hike, overnight hike... Ellen I'm satisfied being one and done with, but for once the ski trails actually look more interesting than the hiking trail if one has to descend that way. Did you skip the plane crash site or just no pics? And, now that you're almost done with the 67 and have glimpsed the Daks, it's about time you go there, don't you think?

The colors were great down low. And that may just be how they look from 4000'. Plus part of it was me doing some editing to define the distant peaks. That washed out the colors somewhat. Not to say it's not past but we saw some pretty good colors on the drive and down low on the hike.

It was cool seeing the Daks but I didn't even notice until we were about to leave Ellen that Lake Champlain was down there. Because of the closeness, angle, and low lying misty haze, it was barely noticeable.


Totally forgot about the plane crash but I'm fine with not seeing a down Cessna.

The good one is on Camel's Hump. A B-24 crashed there. Alas all that is left is just a wing (from what I remember). But it was still pretty cool to see.

Glad you guys had a picture perfect day for this. I still swear the V 4K's proportionally are better than the Whites. 5 for 5 in the views department.

Didn't know about the plane crash. Good to know for tomorrow.

It was a fun hike, I'm a little bummed that we forgot about the plane crash though. If anyone does this as an out-and-back from Lincoln Gap, it's definitely worth descending the extra few feet from Ellen's wooded summit to see the views from the ski area.

Great pictures. I've got to get over to Vermont one of these days.

My only problem with Vermont is it's not conducive to any sort of loops. Every 4k has been an out and back. Kinda hard when the ranges are big long thin strips.

You can make a nice loop out of Mansfield or Camels Hump from the right side, but otherwise they are all best as traverses or out and back hikes to see the best each mountain has to offer. Bike spots don't work so well when you start hiking 1500 feet up at the top of a gap and have 10 miles of country roads between ends of/around the mountain.