Date: 2022-07-10
From: Glastenbury Mt Mile 1625.5

To: Straton Pond Shelter Mile 1644.6
Miles today: 19.1
Weather: overcast clouds

We woke up at 4:45 to catch the sunrise from the top of Glastenbury fire tower. By the time we got to the top, the sky already had a orange glow. We have found that some of the best views of the sunrise happen about 30 minutes before the actual sunrise. We stayed up in the tower, in the chilly windy 47° air until the sun fully popped over the horizon. Aside from the getting up early aspect I could do this every morning.Finished packing up and got on the road earlier than usual. Part of the trouble of managing to get out early is that I tend to not do things like packing up or eating while watching the sunrise. We had a long relatively gentle descent coming down from Glastenbury Mountain where passed or were passed by many of the hikers that were at the top of Glastenbury or at the Goddard Shelter just before. Seems like we¢re in a little bit of a bubble right now, and recently I¢ve seen more AT hikers as well as LT and section hiker¢s. Otherwise while the forest on the descent was beautiful, we didn¢t get any views.After that we had an approximately 3.4 mile 1700 foot climb up to the top of Stratton Mountain. This is actually not as bad a climb as we were anticipating. Much of it was a rather gentle steady uphill and not the super steep climb of some of the other peaks. We¢d been told that the top of the mountain can be like Disneyland at times because many tourists ride the gondola and then walk the half mile to the fire tower. However when we got there, the last gondola ride up had already occurred and there were only two people up in the fire tower. We climbed up and got some better views of Mount Moosilauke which I believe we climb as well as Mount Snow and Bromley ski resorts. There¢s also a rather large lake between Mount Snow and Stratton Mountain that is quite pretty. Stratton Mountain just misses the 4000 foot mark by 60 feet.The climb down from Stratton Mountain to the Stratton mountain pond and shelter was very easy and Orchid and I got to the shelter just after 5 o¢clock which is earlier than we had originally been expecting. Roller was at the shelter already along with an overnight hiker that lives in Orchid¢s hometown. Two other hikers showed up before dark so the shelter was relatively uncrowded as It can hold 16 people.The shelter has a caretaker because it¢s in an environmentally sensitive area and is heavily used. She told us that 45 people had stayed at the shelter and the campsite the night before. The Green Mountain club has been putting some work into this area along with some of the other shelters - replacing previous pit privy¢s with mouldering privy¢s and adding tent platforms.Before bed we headed down to the pond to watch a very nice sunset which was reflecting in the pond. I had a little bit of a headache and a very runny nose. I think I didn¢t drink enough in the morning. Although  the temperatures were not that hot I think I sweated a bunch and got a bit dehydrated during the day.Pond was super warm but by the time we got down there around sunset the air was cold and I still wasn¢t feeling all that well, so we ended up not going swimming. Roller had been in the water earlier during the day and said it was absolutely fantastic. Of course the means we were drinking ¢Roller Water¢ as the pond is a water source for tomorrow.Steps 27600Weather Forecast: 79/54 and sunny.Jen (my awesome video editor) also created a website to consolidate info: https://atwithduckie.wixsite.c...