Jay H
New member
Met my friend Bev at the Long Trail/AT trailhead on Arlington Stratton Road, about 6.8 miles west of VT100 and we carpooled over to the Stratton Pond Trailhead a mileish west on the same road. Weekend looked to be awesome, weatherwise and we looked forward to a nice night at the Pond, Bev's first backpack. Didn't know what to expect being a week before memorial day, the pond supposedly seeing very heavy use in the summer.
The hike into the pond was real nice, only ~500ft elevation gain over the 3.9 miles, trail is fairly dry despite the early week rains and there are pontoons and bog bridges in many of the wet location. We ran into a couple from Shelburne Falls, MA who was able to tell us the trail conditions.
We find one section hiker at the shelter at Stratton Pond, who started in North Adams and was working his way on this section of the AT and chatted with him for awhile. But it was getting dark since both of us had to work friday, so we didn't start at the trailhead til around 5:15pm so we parted ways and we headed for the north shore tent sites..
Unfortuntely, the trail around the short way to the North Shore sites is closed due to the trail being underwater from beaver activity, so we made our way back to Willis Ross Clearning and decided that the caretaker site (He/she has a primo spot!!!!!) was good enough and empty so we used it. The huge tent platform was big enough to fit both our tents and it has a great view of the pond and the spring is right there. We had the pond to ourselves as we saw nobody that night until we finally chatted with a AT thruhiker who passed through our camp headed north. He asked us when these bugs would go and we both smiled and I told him... July?? Guess he must of not been from the NE and not aware of the black flies...
Anyway, we have a lazy breakfast knowing we have only a 7ish mile day to go up and over Stratton, hang out at the north summit a bit and back to the south summit to pick up the AT south back to my car. The climb up is very gradual and a lot less steep than I thought it would be and we would run into a few AT Thruhikers on their northward journey. Definitely a low snow year, chatted with a few who said a bunch of folks started in mid february. Anyway, the firetower is awesome, I could easily identify, Greylock, Equinox, Dorset, we could see Killington, Ascutney and Monadnock and Jene, the caretaker said that Mt Washington could of been seen in the morning with less of the haze...
Nonetheless the firetower is in great shape thanks to the GMC... :tup:
We head over on the ridge trail to the north summit to have lunch and check out the ski slopes, find and chat with a lot of dayhikers there and use the restroom since it was open and had running water..
Back and the long descent down to our car, what a great time and a real nice backpack.... Loons, red efts, a big beaver was checking us out friday evening, coyotes were howling, saw a small garter snake....
https://picasaweb.google.com/104827043392670889977/20120518StrattonPondStrattonMtnPart1
https://picasaweb.google.com/104827043392670889977/20120519StrattonMtnPart2
Jay
The hike into the pond was real nice, only ~500ft elevation gain over the 3.9 miles, trail is fairly dry despite the early week rains and there are pontoons and bog bridges in many of the wet location. We ran into a couple from Shelburne Falls, MA who was able to tell us the trail conditions.
We find one section hiker at the shelter at Stratton Pond, who started in North Adams and was working his way on this section of the AT and chatted with him for awhile. But it was getting dark since both of us had to work friday, so we didn't start at the trailhead til around 5:15pm so we parted ways and we headed for the north shore tent sites..
Unfortuntely, the trail around the short way to the North Shore sites is closed due to the trail being underwater from beaver activity, so we made our way back to Willis Ross Clearning and decided that the caretaker site (He/she has a primo spot!!!!!) was good enough and empty so we used it. The huge tent platform was big enough to fit both our tents and it has a great view of the pond and the spring is right there. We had the pond to ourselves as we saw nobody that night until we finally chatted with a AT thruhiker who passed through our camp headed north. He asked us when these bugs would go and we both smiled and I told him... July?? Guess he must of not been from the NE and not aware of the black flies...
Anyway, we have a lazy breakfast knowing we have only a 7ish mile day to go up and over Stratton, hang out at the north summit a bit and back to the south summit to pick up the AT south back to my car. The climb up is very gradual and a lot less steep than I thought it would be and we would run into a few AT Thruhikers on their northward journey. Definitely a low snow year, chatted with a few who said a bunch of folks started in mid february. Anyway, the firetower is awesome, I could easily identify, Greylock, Equinox, Dorset, we could see Killington, Ascutney and Monadnock and Jene, the caretaker said that Mt Washington could of been seen in the morning with less of the haze...
Nonetheless the firetower is in great shape thanks to the GMC... :tup:
We head over on the ridge trail to the north summit to have lunch and check out the ski slopes, find and chat with a lot of dayhikers there and use the restroom since it was open and had running water..
Back and the long descent down to our car, what a great time and a real nice backpack.... Loons, red efts, a big beaver was checking us out friday evening, coyotes were howling, saw a small garter snake....
https://picasaweb.google.com/104827043392670889977/20120518StrattonPondStrattonMtnPart1
https://picasaweb.google.com/104827043392670889977/20120519StrattonMtnPart2
Jay
