Stratton Mountain

Note from Admin:
Between cell service issues in Vermont and the hurricane in North Carolina, we had some delayed messages that ended up confusing the timeline and miles covered in our blog entries. Rather than try to sort it all out, correct previous entries and add skipped information (which would probably just confuse everyone), we are going to pick up at Forest Fisher's current location a little farther along in Vermont and move forward.

We got an early start and headed out down the Trail hoping to travel about 15 miles. We spent most of the morning hiking through the green tunnel with very few chances to see out of the woods to get my bearings. After hiking about 5 miles the forest thinned out, and we came to Stratton Pond and the side trail to the shelter by the same name. I stopped to collect water, have lunch and give Forest a break.

When we resumed our hike, the Trail descended for a short time and then began to climb about 1,700 feet to the summit of Stratton Mountain (elevation 3,940 feet). We took a break at the top, not far from the fire tower. A short distance away, we could see the Stratton Mountain ski resort, but fortunately for me the Trail didn't go that way.

After our break, we headed back down the mountain. The descent was steeper than the ascent had been, but not too bad. It's nice to be in a state that uses switchbacks again, instead of having the Trail just barrel down mountains in a straight line. After a little less than 4 miles we approached the Stratton-Arlington Road Trailhead. It had been raining and my back was bothering me, so I decided to collect water and set up camp near the trailhead instead of pushing ahead to the shelter. Plus, I wanted to check in with my wife to see how they were doing—Hurricane Florence (now a tropical storm) was closing in, and our house is very near a river. I knew she was prepared and had had our generator serviced, but wanted to stay in touch as much as possible. As it turned out, the water began to rise in our yard, and she made the very wise decision to take the kids to her mother's to ride it out.