This view is from Stratton Mountain in Vermont - the peak where Benton MacKaye envisioned the Appalachian Trail in the early 1900s.
Video post! Glastenbury Mountain fire tower
View on day 3 of our Long Trail hike in Vermont.
Day 3 - Long Trail
We started pretty early this morning to make up for lost miles. We were shocked to see the fire tower on Glastenbury was less than 5 minutes away from the shelter. I guess our 2012 guide book was wrong! I climbed up and took some photos and a video and we headed back on our way. We had a pretty easy morning and the first eight miles went by before 11 a.m. We stopped for lunch at the Story Spring Shelter and four other NoBo's showed up nearly right behind us and we all had lunch together before heading back out for the afternoon.
Looking south from Glastenbury Mountain fire tower.
We got down to FS117 and then Kelley Stand Road when we got our first trail magic - ice cold root beers and KitKat bars from Ron! His wife, Jersey, is a section hiker we met at the shelter last night. The soda and candy gave us a good amount of energy to get up and over our big mountain for the day. We began climbing up Stratton Mountain and it honestly wasn't as hard as we thought it looked on paper! There were a few steep and rocky sections, but that is really the norm in Vermont. We reached the top in less than an hour and a half and met the caretaker before climbing up the tower. It was a clear but windy afternoon, but thankfully this tower had all the windows installed! I took tons more photos and video and we then began our ascent down to the shelter.
A blaze in the middle of the trail, surrounded by ferns.
The climb down Stratton was just as steep, rocky, and muddy, but we made it the 3.6 miles to the Stratton Pond Shelter pretty quickly as well. After all is said and done, we hiked 19.3 miles on trail, plus the 0.2 miles to the shelter. It's amazing to make these kinds of miles when you aren't an AT thru hiker with 1600 miles under your belt! Tomorrow we are going to get up early and get into Manchester Center around lunchtime for our resupply.
The plaque on top of Stratton Mountain.
Day 2 - Long Trail
We started out by climbing up to the top of Harmon Hill under a blue sky. It was already nice and warm and when we hit the top of the hill we were greeted by ripe raspberries at the top and a view of Bennington. We then did the steep hillside down the rock staircase to route 9.
From here, we went uphill steeply again to the Melville Nauheim Shelter and took a lunch break. NoKey has been dehydrated so we made sure to refill and drink our water before moving on. We met a southbounder named Rocco at Hell Hollow Brook and chatted with him before rock hopping across due to the bridge being out.
Hell Hollow Brook
From here we did quite a few ups and downs on Porcupine Ridge leap frogging with northbounders and passing tons of southbounders. We really began getting worn out before we had to climb one of the last hills of the day up to the Goddard Shelter. The rock stairs were steep all the way up and thunder began clapping overhead. I finally reached the piped spring prior to the shelter and filled my water and rehydrated my dinner. I ran inside the shelter and set down my gear waiting for NoKey, who thankfully made it to the shelter just as the rain started to fall.
The rain stopped for a short moment and then began again several more times for the next three hours. We had originally been planning on hiking out and up to the fire tower to camp, but since the trail was wet and more storms might hit tonight, we stayed in the shelter instead. We will get up early in the morning to make up the additional two miles. We at least met quite a few Long Trail thru hikers here, so that was nice for us.
The fungus among us!