Day 5 Long Trail 2008

I slept in this morning. By that I mean that after waking up everytime I had to turn over, (as happens every night), I continued to nap till 0630. By then, a trip to the privy was necessary so up I got. Of course, that delayed my leaving till 0900. The sky was overcast and looked like rain so I put my pack cover on the pack and kept my rain jacket handy. the Battell Shelter is 1/2 wau pt Mt Abraham. It took me an hour to get to the summit. Half way up, I put the rain jacket on because the wind was picking up and some rain was beginning to fall. Getting to the top was not easy. I'm afraind of falling anyway and some of the traverses of bedrock were pretty extreme for someone already afraid and who's wearing a pack. I couldn't belive I saw families with small children and dogs on this trail yesterday! At one point, going up a steep rock face with nothing but small lumps of rock and cracks to use as toe holds, I got my right foot wedged in a crack and couldn't pull it out. By then I had my left foot up, but couldn't get the right one out so I had to step back down, find the small rock bump I had been using for support and balance on screaming calf muscle while trying to get right foot un-wedged. I finally wriggled the boot loose. I eventually made it to the top - breathing havily more from terror and adreneline than exertion but I did give a big Yahoo! at the summit, 4008 feet. Mt Abraham was the 1st of 3, 4000+ foot peaks and 2 nearly 4000feet that I did this day. Fortunately, from Mt Abraham, it's more of a ridge walk than a constant mountain climb. The whole time I was crossing the ridge, the weather was getting worse. Just before noon, I had found a marginal place to sit down and have a drink of water and a snack. But the wind was blowing so hard and was so cold, it was too cold to sit there, even with my rain jacket on. I was also concerned with corssing the last 4083ft peak, Mt Ellen, in such a gale. So I packed up and headed out. I had to cross a lower peak before Mt Ellen and the wind was blowing hard enough that I worried trees would come down. None of the other peaks had as much bedrock to cross as Mt Abraham so that worry was gone. There was lots of wind and lots of sideways rain and at the top of every peak a big YOO HOO! Anyway, by 1230 I crossed Mt Ellen and gegan the descent. Again - tough going up, tougher going down. Lots of places I had to hold onto branches and or roots and drop a foot or so, always hoping it wouldn't tear up an ankle or knee. At one point on a ledge 2 feet higer than my legs are long and no seemingly good way down, I just shouted, " you guyes are killing me! I just have stubby little legs!" Yelling at long gone trail maintainers didn't make much sense but restored my sense of humor and I eventually worked out how to get down. I was just a little frustrated at the difficulty. finally, at 1415, I got to the trail for the Glen Ellen lodge. The lodge is .3 of a mile down the ridge. Seemingly straight down a rocky stream bed. At the bottom is a rock face so steep and smooth the maintainers put a wooden ladder in place. It rests in a small streambed but does not reach to the top of the rock face, I had to more or less slide down to it, hoping not to miss the ladder. I slipped the last 3 rungs of the ladder, it being all wet, mossy and slippery, just missing landing in the streambed and falling into the woods, just missing being skewered by spruce branches and crushing some spruce seedlings. Fortunately, I was only wet, not hurt. The Glen Ellen lodge is a cabin set on a cliff overlooking the valley below. Shortly after 3pm the sun came out but the bog and haze in the valley never cleared enough for a good picture. I'll try and get out of here in the morning by 0800 and probably have to spend 1/2 hour getting out of the .3 mile trail back to the Long Trail. Picture is of the Glen Ellen Lodge, cabin built in 1933. Today's milage: 6.7 miles, trip mileage: 36.1 miles.