Winter Hiking Mt Ellen in January

Mt Ellen is a 4000-footer in Vermont that’s located on the Long Trail and at the top of the Sugarbush ski resort. I led a Green Mountain Club hike to it with three other experienced winter hikers on Saturday, completing the 8-mile out-and-back in 6 hours. There was a lot of snow, and I doubt I could have found the Long Trail (ever try to find white blazes in winter?) or broken trail to the summit by myself.

Mt Ellen is probably the least climbed winter summit of the fine Vermont 4000-footers, which also include Killington Peak, Mt Mansfield, Camels Hump, and Mt Abraham. There are two ways to approach the summit, both via the Long Trail, from the north and the south. We took the southerly route, climbing the Jerusalem Trail to the ridge and then following the Long Trail north. We wore snowshoes for the entire hike, while our trail crampons came along for the ride.

Following the Long Trail north was touch-and-go. The trail corridor is difficult to discern because the trees along it are heavily laden with snow, blocking a clear line of sight. The snow depth is high enough that the trees’ boughs, which are normally over your head, are at face or chest height, so you have to duck or slide under them, all the while trying to avoid getting snow down the back of your neck.

Fully equipped for an arduous winter hike

Luckily, we were joined on this hike by Ken, who has extensive experience hiking and backcountry skiing up to Ellen by the same route. His familiarity was a big asset for our route finding. While I’ve hiked the entire Long Trail previously, the last time I’d been on Ellen or the trail to its immediate north or south was in 2008, so you could say my local experience was a little rusty. Regardless, everything looks very different on the Long Trail in winter, and three-season experiences are a lot less valuable than you’d expect.

Mt Ellen is situated at the top of the Sugarbush ski resort, which had a 116″ base, having grown 10″ just that week. As we approached the peak, we encountered an increasing number of backcountry skiers who were cutting new trails through the woods. This is potentially quite hazardous because they’re not expecting slow-moving snowshers to be in the way. While we avoided an incident, we also lost the Long Trail amid the maze of tracks surrounding us in the woods. Rather than each one (GPS isn’t specific enough to pick the right route), we opted to hike to the ski slope and then follow it to the summit.

Sugarbush, like many ski resorts, has rules for uphill travel but offers hikers a free pass to do so. Unfortunately, the rules and trails where uphill travel is permitted are very difficult to understand because the trails referenced are resort-specific and not listed on any hiking maps.  I hadn’t planned for this contingency because I didn’t expect to lose the Long Trail. But I will look into it before next month, when I’m scheduled to lead the same hike up Mt Ellen again (I’m gridding the Vermont 4000-footers).

We started snowshoeing up the ski slope.

Ken knew the way, so we followed him up the ski slope, hugging the right boundary to avoid being run over by downhill skiers and snowboarders. We had to climb a surprisingly long distance, all the way to the second ski lift. There, on the right, was a short trail leading to the official Mt Ellen summit. We had a quick break and decided to try to follow the official Long Trail from the summit back to where we got sidetracked by the maze of backcountry ski trails.

On the climb up the ski slope, we’d seen a sign indicating the Long Trail on the right. So we hiked downhill to this point and butt-slid down the side of the ski slope to the trail because the snow covered it entrance was so deep. We tried following it but couldn’t find the trail, even with our Avenza GPS app.

We followed the Exterminator Ski Trail back to the Long Trail

Rather than plow forward in what could have been a compromising bushwhack, we backtracked to the ski trail and hiked down it again, with the aim of retracing our steps. Ski Patrol did stop us, but understood our predicament and recommended that we take a left onto the Exterminator Trail, which would bring us back to the Long Trail lower down the peak. That worked very well, and we had a straight 4-mile shot back to the trailhead, retracing our steps from the morning.