Abraham provides challenge Plant variety, view among highlights

Maybe this describes you. You’ve hiked on every weekend, through one of the coldest springs on record for Maine. You’ve marched up and down small hills and forest walks on day hikes, covering four or five miles in the half-day that you spend on the trail, with stops along the way. Or you’ve been leading your family on short, flat, hikes that the kids easily accomplish. By now, you’re looking for a hike that’s longer in miles, greater in height, with astounding views, and an interesting history.

If either of the above situations fits you, Mount Abraham in Kingfield may be just the right destination.

The mountain, which is also called Mount Abram on most maps, rises out of the landscape surrounding Kingfield like a sprawling giant. On a clear day, the 4,049-foot summit’s gray rock is visible from the town and the roads that approach and nearly surround its base. Mount Abraham is included in the 4,033 acres which has been donated by the Appalachian Trail Conference and more than a dozen conservation groups to the state as an ecological preserve. Unique alpine plants on its summit qualify it for protection. In fact, the plant community on the summit is surpassed only by the plants on Katahdin.

There are only 13 mountains in Maine which are higher than 4,000 feet, including Mount Abraham, the 10th highest. The moderately difficult hike begins in Rapid Stream valley on the Fire Warden’s Trail. For the first 3 miles of the total 4.5 miles of this trail’s length to the summit, the grade is gentle through a cut-over, hardwood forest on the lower slopes. It’s been probably 50 years since this forest was last cut. There are large birch, beech and oak, mixed with maples growing to nearly mature height.

After leaving the car at the trailhead, you cross Norton Brook at about the half a mile mark. On the north side, the trail steadily rises to the northeast base of the mountain. After another half mile of forest walk, where you’re likely to see moose tracks in the upland, boggy areas, you arrive at a gravel logging road. Look for a rock pile that marks the trail on the other side of the road. From here it’s a little over two miles of steady, uphill, easy hiking to the Fire Warden’s Cabin.

Through the forested ridge’s growth there are only a few views of a foothill, on the opposite side of the valley. Soon the trail brings you to one of four fairly large, unnamed feeder brooks to Rapid Stream, now distant, unseen, and steadily dropping away below. You’ll cross this brook and the three others on the way up to the cabin. As you near the cabin, there is one partial view of Sugarloaf to the north.

As you walk this route you can’t help but wonder about the life of the fire warden during fire season. He had to haul supplies to the camp, for one thing.

It was this route that he walked or rode, as horse or tractor could have supplied it. Some of the earliest towers in New England were built around 1917. The tower on the summit, to which one warden likely climbed daily in rotation with another from the cabin, was probably not that old. Now only the metal frame stands. But the cabin below still sits in the clearing.

There’s a porch over the entrance to the old cabin, which has been slowly but surely settling into the ground since it’s abandonment. The elevation here is a little over 2,000 feet and it makes a great spot for a taking a pack-off break. There is a spring about 30 feet to the right of the cabin, as you face it. The next stretch of trail gains a huge, 2,000 feet in its mile and a half-length.

After a snack break, follow the trail to the right, looking out from the porch. It ascends fairly steeply and soon approaches the bank of the last brook you crossed before reaching the cabin. This is the your only chance to get water until the return trip. Look for a short trail to the brook down a steep bank. Soon, in about a quarter mile, the route leaves the small ravine cut by the brook and starts to rise steeper toward the base of the summit cone. Here, the forest is mixed spruce, fir and hemlock.

Once you leave the forest you enter the open rock zone at the base of the summit, still three-quarters of a mile away. The view of Sugarloaf, which you’ve been only glimpsing on the ascent, soon commands the view to the north. The loose rock of the summit makes for difficult scrambling. The trail is marked through the scree zone by cairns of stacked rock and ascends steeply toward the old tower. Along the trail to the left lies abandoned phone line that used to connect the cabin and the tower.

Near the summit the trail is bordered by some of the plants that make this summit unique, among them Diapensia, which grows in pincushion, moss mats in an alpine plant community. The dwarf, stunted balsam fir and black spruce known as krummholz also grows along side the rocky route. Some of the plants here are found in the Arctic. Footstep damage is their biggest threat, so stay on the trail here.

On the top at last, the view is 360 degrees. On a good day, the surrounding peaks are, starting in the south, Mount Blue, Saddleback, Kennebago, Spaulding, Lone, Sugarloaf, North and South Crocker, Bigelow’s Avery and West Peaks and Moxie Bald. There are seven of the 12 highest peaks in the state in the view. Mount Abraham lies in the forefront of them all.

The return hike is via the same trail you took up (fire wardens having rarely cut a loop trail). On the way back the view of near and distant mountains lingers burns an image in your memory. As you walk back to your car, you can feel rewarded by the accomplishment of having taken a long, sometimes tough, hike to one of the truly great treasures in Maine.

Road Approach

The road to the Fire Warden’s Trail is easy to find. From Kingfield, take Route 27 north toward Sugarloaf. While still in town, look for the West Kingfield Road, just before the Jordan Lumber Co. sign. Drive out this road for six miles. Turn left toward Rapid Stream, which the road has followed for a short way. After crossing the stream on a bridge, the trailhead is at a T in the road in about a half a mile. There is no sign and only a small space for parking.

Brad Viles of Ellsworth is an avid hiker