Saturday I went up Abraham and Ellen for my second and third of the VT-5.  The weather forecast was for cold weather with a possibility of snow.  Well, that wasn't wrong, but I was overdressed.  The trail in starts right away with the uphill, with no warm up.  The leaves have fallen, but the trail was well traveled so it wasn't hard to follow or extra slippery.  About 0.7 miles in, I stop and strip off the upper layers.  I was dripping sweat, and I didn't want to be wet when I got to the top in another 2 miles.  I actually was down to just a tee shirt and no head wear of any kind.  

The trail continued a pretty steady climb with some stretches of relatively flat.  About 2500 feet the trail started to turn more into a rocky trail instead of mostly dirt, but this is not unexpected.  In what felt like no time I reach the junction with the Long Trail and shortly there after the shelter.  There are 2 shelters there.  One a typical leanto type shelter.  The other is brand new, has a raised platform with "seating" below it and some floor below that.  The seating and floor are protected from all sides from the wind, while the platform is on 3 sides.  Overall, if you had to, you could probably fit 20 people in there.

From the shelter it was a short hike up the worst of the terrain for the day.  There were 3 steep slabs that had to be climbed with a bunch of scrambles between them.  One of the slides had foot holds actually drilled out near the top, which I found a bit surprising.  These weren't horribly difficult to climb, but care had to be taken.  Unlike the granite I'm used to in the 'Daks, this granite is mixed with a fair amount of quartz.  The granite is pretty grippy, even in the wet areas, but the quartz is not.  I've had worse climbs, but it was slow and steady to get up it.  I then reached the top and all I could see was clouds.  I was also seeing in that last half mile some snow on the trees and mosses.  I also got hit by the wind while in my damp tee shirt and had to put a layer back on for the rest of the hike.

The next 3.2 miles over to Ellen were quite pleasant.  A bit of up and down, and per Peakery, went over 6 other "peaks".  Ellen was a treed in spot where I met a half dozen college kids wondering where the peak was.  There was a cairn a couple feet off the trail to mark it.  Then it was doing everything in reverse.  The good news was that as the afternoon went on, it started clearing up.  As I went across a couple of the ski lift areas you could see the valley, and one of the small ledges just off trail between the peaks provided a beautiful view of the Sugarbush ski area and valley around it.  By the time I got back to the top of Abraham, about 4 hours later, it was clear, and the views were spectacular.  I could even see my home mountains just across the lake.  The hike out was quick, once I got down the slabs.  Confused one guy who came up long after I did, and didn't seem to realize that there was trail past Abraham... I passed him with us both on the way down.

In the end, 11.9 miles and 3960 feet of elevation over 7.6 hours.  Year to date 296 miles over 199 hours and 14.4 miles of elevation.  I will easily hit 300 miles and 200 hours of hiking this year.

This also makes 3/5 for the Vermont 5 and 57/115 for the NE111.