STRATTON MOUNTAIN, Vt. — On the south side of the mountain a mile from the ski area, low-lying clouds create a thick, chill fog around the old fire tower. A companion and I have just climbed up 3.8 miles, hoping for a glimpse of the summit’s famous 360-degree views. Instead, we’re wildly searching our daypacks for more clothes to put on.
“There can be a 10-degree difference from the bottom to the top,’’ said caretaker Hugh Joudry, who, after 25 years, knows well.
A century ago, another hiker waited for the weather to clear here on southern Vermont’s highest peak. In his tent, James P. Taylor, headmaster of a local boys’ academy, had an idea: Why not create a foot trail that would traverse the length of Vermont, linking the state’s highest peaks?
On March 11, 1910, Taylor’s dream took off with the founding of the Green Mountain Club (www.greenmountainclub.org), the group that built the Long Trail over the next 20 years and maintains it to this day. The trail is the oldest long-distance footpath in the country, extending 272 miles through Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest from the Massachusetts border to Canada.
While the Long Trail was being built, Benton MacKaye, a forester and conservationist, wrote that he experienced “a planetary feeling’’ atop Stratton Mountain that inspired the Appalachian Trail, the thousand-mile footpath that spans the entire Appalachian range from Georgia to Maine. The two trails coincide at the mountain and for the first 100 miles through Vermont.
An alternative to hiking up Stratton Mountain is to take a 12-minute ride on the gondola from the base of Stratton Mountain Ski Resort to the summit. From the gondola, it’s less than a mile to the historic fire tower.
Stratton Pond From the summit of the mountain, it’s 3.2 miles downhill to Stratton Pond, the largest body of water on the trail. To protect the pond, overnight camping is restricted to a nearby post-and-beam shelter with 20 wooden bunks (pads and sleeping bags advised), or a tent site about a mile farther around the pond. A caretaker lives onsite from May through mid-October. Camping fees are $5 per person per night.
Sadly, the old loop trail that went all the way around the pond is no more. “We no longer have a circular hike around the pond because the area’s been flooded by beaver activity,’’ said Dave Hardy, field director for the Green Mountain Club.
Stratton Pond Trail Leaving the white blazes of the Long Trail, this side trail offers a flat meander from the pond southward back to Kelly Stand Road (3.7 miles). It’s another nine-10ths mile east to the parking lot-trailhead for the Long Trail-Appalachian Trail, where the summit hike begins. The entire loop is 11.6 miles.
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