Date: 2008-08-12
From: Goddard Shelter

To: Stratton Pond Shelter
Miles today: 19.4
Weather: moderate rain

Last night, we huddled cozily in the back corner of the shelter while a wind whipped rain lashed at the shelter for most of the night. We heard a couple of nobo thru-hikers come in after dark, but by then the shelter was fairly full. When we woke up in the morning, I noticed that one of them wound up sleeping on the bench near the outside of the shelter. The way the wind was blowing the rain around last night, I'm guessing he got a bit wet and didn't sleep very well. We never did see him emerge from under his coverings before we left. After a quick breakfast of hot tea, pop tarts, and cereal, we said goodbye to our shelter mates and headed up the trail to Glastonbury Mt. There is a fire tower up there, but it wasn't worth going up this morning because it was very foggy. At least it wasn't raining any more. Once again, the trail was a mess as we got started, but it seemed to get a bit less muddy as we moved on. We settled into a very steady rhythm today and the miles seemed to be ticking away quickly. We passed by the side trail to the Kid Gore Shelter, where we stopped for a quick water break. On the other side of the trail, there was a pile of rubble that I guess used to be an old shelter that was torn down. Coming down to a small pond later in the morning, the sun actually started to come out. It seems the weather is starting to change for the better. We arrived at the Story Spring Shelter before noon and the sun was shining. Boy did it feel good! We took off our soaking wet boots and socks and laid them out in the sunshine to begin the drying process while we had lunch. One of the thru-hikers (I think his trail name was Rerun) who came into the shelter late last night showed up shortly after we got there, but he continued on. When we started out this morning, our destination for the day was the Story Spring Shelter, but since we arrived so early and felt so good, we decided to just keep going and perhaps stealth camp somewhere in the woods on the way up Stratton Mt. After crossing a nice wood bridge near Kelley Stand Rd, we walked down the dirt road for about a quarter of a mile when we ran into ReRun again by the side of the road. He had taken his hiking shoes off and was airing out his feet. He showed us his shoes, which were all split open and totally falling apart. He didn't bother wearing socks either because his shoes were such a mess. He told us that he has some new shoes being mailed to him when he gets into Manchester tomorrow. Continuing on, we headed off of the dirt road back into the woods and began the long gradual approach to Stratton Mt. We started hearing rumbles of thunder again, so we decided to start looking for a good spot to possibly set up our tent and hunker down. We couldn't find a spot that was satisfactory, so we just kept going, and before we knew it, we were most of the way up Stratton Mt. Rerun passed us again near the top of the mountain, and when we got to the top, all three of us climbed the fire tower to check out the view. It was pretty cold and windy up there, and spits of rain starting to come down. We could see all the way down to Stratton Pond, which by then we decided would be our final destination for the day. It was 5:00 PM, we had come this far already, we were still feeling pretty good, so there was no sense in stopping now. After a quick snack and drink, we headed on down the back side of Stratton Mt towards Stratton Pond Shelter. By the time we got to the shelter, we were getting pretty tired, but were glad that we had decided to put a long day in because now we could get to Manchester a day early and spend a full zero day there! Ann was especially proud of herself, because she never believed she could hike as far as we did today. Rerun was at the shelter having dinner when we arrived. There was also another hiker there who was rather strange. He wouldn't gives us a straight answer when we asked him a couple of times where he was headed, so we gave up on that conversation. After a nice hot dinner of Mountain House spaghetti, we settled into our sleeping bags for the night. It was a long day today, and we hadn't planned to come this far, but it will be worth it when we get to Manchester tomorrow, where we can spend a full zero day just relaxing.