Day four in Maine would be our last big day. We dropped a car at Rapid Stream Rd in Kingfield with the hope of traversing from Sugarloaf to Abraham and exiting via the Fire Warden's trail. We had no idea what we would find for trail conditions, but we were optimistic that the broken trail on the AT from Caribou Valley Rd toward Sugarloaf would result in some portion of broken trail on the ridge. Not many people go between Spaulding and Abraham in the winter, but we had seen a few trip reports of people that had done it this year, just not necessarily recently. At this point Sugarloaf ski area was reporting almost three feet of new snow in the last seven days.
We would start by climbing Sugarloaf through the ski area. This makes for a short and steep climb of the mountain, but we were on freshly groomed ski trails. The ski area almost to the summit, so when we exit the ski trail, we have just a short walk to the true top. The top of Sugarloaf has multiple towers (cell, tv?) and itself isn't all that pretty. We were mostly in the clouds, so we didn't have much for views, and didn't linger for long.
Climbing up through the Sugarloaf ski area
It took a few minutes to find the hiking trail off of the summit - the summit is a spur trail off of the AT. Once we were in the trees, we were disappointed to find an unbroken trial, but we still had some hope that the AT itself had a track. We could see evidence of prior hikers, we just weren't sure how many days it had been since someone was through here. We soon hit the junction with the AT, and again found an unbroken trail. We continued on toward Spaulding with traces of a track here and there, and some route finding along the way. The ascent of Spaulding wasn't too bad, with only a couple of steep sections, but not as bad as the trail breaking on North Crocker. The Spaulding summit is also not on the AT, with a short, steep spur trail leading there. On the summit, we were still in the clouds, and had no views.
The Spaulding summit sign
After making the summit and retreating back to the AT, we stopped for a break. This was the major decision point, continue on unbroken trail to Abraham or turn around a retrace our route back to Sugarloaf and out. Abraham was 3.6 miles away, but some of that is above treeline, so we shouldn't have to break trail for the entire distance. We also had one more bail out point where we could get out to Caribou Valley Rd if needed. Everyone committed to going for Abraham, so off we went.
There are tons of trees covered in beard moss along the ridge
The trail meanders through mostly open woods until reaching the Mt Abraham trail, where we depart the AT. It was slow going, but we made steady progress.
Boghollow breaking trail towards Abraham
We continued trail breaking until we reached treeline, where we were greeted with some winds, and once again, no views. We made our way across the open ridge to the summit, where we paused for a few pictures. Abraham would be Boghollow's winter NE115 finish, as well as his four season NE115 finish. The wind was ideal for a celebration, so continued on. It took a little care to descend the other side of Abraham and find where the trail entered the trees. Once in the trees, we had a quick celebration of Boghollow's accomplishments, and then continued on. Once again, we hoped to find a broken trail, but did not. We would settle in for a few more miles of trail breaking.
Grace.points and Boghollow getting above treeline on Abraham
Further down the Fire Warden's trail, we suddenly found a broken trail. It appeared that someone had started up the trail in one of the prior days, but gave up and turned around. That allowed us to increase the pace on the way to the summer trail-head. When we reached the summer trail-head, we found a packed down snowmobile trail, to finally offer a little more relief. We put on headlamps, and walked the last few miles in relative silence.
It was another long day - about 16 miles in 12 hours, but we had completed all of the peaks in the Carrabassett Valley. After seeing the condition of the Fire Warden's trail, we all agreed that none of us would have wanted to have skipped Abraham and return to try to climb the Fire Warden's trail the next day.