Mt. Abraham Traverse (Barnjum-W. Kingfield Rd) 16-17Feb08

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Frodo

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Location
West Newton, MA
Trail Conditions: Followed well packed snowmobile trails for 7 miles from Barnjum to our camp spot at 2700’ (below the col between Middle Abraham and Abraham). The next day we followed a snowmobile trail (broken about ½ way) to the col between the 2 peaks. From there it was all above treeline which was scoured snow (no ice) and little exposed rock all the way to the summit of Abraham (we skipped Middle).

We followed the Fire Warden’s Trail down (which took a lot of route finding), and broke trail thru about 8-12 inches of fresh snow over some boilerplate with about 4-5 feet of mostly consolidated snow under that (it’s been a banner snow year in NW Maine this year!). We did hit a broken trail about a ½ a mile above the Fire Warden’s Cabin, which was where Onestep et al turned around just a few hours before we got there. At the first snowmobile trail crossing (about 1-1/2 miles below the cabin), we turned left and followed it down the remaining 4 miles to our spotted (not literally) ;) vehicles.

Special Equipment Required: We wore snowshoes the whole way. Also some “wicked pissah” cold weather camping gear for the sub-zero temps certainly helped. Two of us hauled sleds over the summit, which to me wasn’t worth the aggravation (especially in 30-40mph winds) :eek:

Comments: We had blue skies galore for most of this cold 2 day trip. An arctic blast rolled thru giving us clear skies, along with negative temps and some wind to deal with (though the wind wasn’t as bad as the forecast). It also gave us (as Carl Sagan used to say), "billions and billions of stars.." Memorable weekend with GO, Arm, Suebiscuit, Hamtero, Chinooktrail, Mats Roing, and Donna.
 
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