Starting with a gondola ride to the false summit, follow the path to the fire tower at the true summit. Out and back ~ 1.25 miles
After taking the gondola ride to the top of Stratton Mountain, we walked around to some of the look out points. Then keeping the big bear statue to our left , we walked down a path to another lookout deck, and then circling back to the trailhead for the Fire Tower.
According to Stratton’s website, “the trailhead is marked approximately 50 feet down “Mike’s Way” on left. Follow this trail from the Summit of Stratton to the old Fire Tower, which marks the true summit of Stratton Mountain and the crossing of the Long and Appalachian Trails.”
The trail is easy. It is a mix of dirt paths and wooden planks. It was surrounded by luscious moss and ferns, some pretty wild flowers, and butterflies.
Most notable on the trail was passing Jeanne and Hugh Joudry (We passed them at separate times). They are the long time summit caretakers for the Green Mountain Club. Since 1968 they have been working as fire lookouts. As we passed. Hugh warned us that if there was any thunder not to climb the tower. We didn’t chat on the way up, but Todd explained to us who we passed so on the way back, when we saw Hugh we stopped and introduced ourselves thanking him and Jeanne for all that they do.
The 70 foot fire tower offers incredible 360-degree views of the Green Mountain range and the Taconic Mountains. The highest level has windows, so I spent most of my time looking from the second to highest level.
As we were looking at the views I saw a big cloud in the shape of a bear. I pointed it out to Heidi by saying, “ooh, look at the bear,” and her response was something like “it is a bear.” Steph, who was on the upper level, called down and said, “I really hope you guys are looking at shapes in the clouds and not seeing real bears.“ We didn’t even realize how we must have been terrifying the hikers on the ground below.
If the flies weren’t so bad, we could have stayed up there a little longer, but they were swarming, so we headed back down and after hugging some bear statues we were on our way.
Adventurers included: Jes, Dana, Bryan, Todd, Heidi, Robin, Steph and Rocko