Miles: 19; Elevation gained: 2,200 feet

We got rain at Goddard despite none in the forecast. That’s the way of the ridge – a 30% chance in the valley is 100% up here more often than not, and this time it was zero to 100. Vey happy with the tent. I set it up in kind of a hollow on the hill – basically a bowl that all the rain water could be caught in. Helps to be a veteran backpacker… but despite the ground tarp getting soaked, none of it came up through the floor, and the fly kept it all off the roof and walls. It’s a Big Agnes Copper Spur 2-man and I heartily recommend it, though if you do have someone else in it with you it had better be someone you know really, really well. Less than 3 lbs to carry including stakes. Such a difference these days – I carried 70 pounds as a teen, and now if you have over 35, even with 5 days food, you are doing something wrong. Or just not spending enough!

Quite the crew at the shelter. A couple in their 20’s who met on the PCT – now they are hiking the AT together – going south obviously. There are a lot of “flip flops” on the AT this year. That’s when you, say, start in Georgia, stop in Harper’s Ferry, fly up to Maine and hike down. Flip flop. This year, many thru hikers who started in March down south got kicked off the AT when it closed due to the ‘Rona. If they started again where they got stopped they’d never make it to Maine by winter, so flip flop.
There is also a group of LT Nobo’s who started the same Saturday in MA that we did: 3 solo women from VT, 2 guys from VT, and another solo woman from Boston who actually works for a company that has a contract handling that city’s pandemic response. After 40 minutes talking to her around the fire at Stratton Pond, all I can say is, in the interest of originality: wear a mask and socially distance. On that note, whenever we meet day hikers on the trail, they generally step aside and whip on a mask. We don’t, I guess because we just can’t do that over and over again for 280 miles and because we’re up here in the mountains and they’re coming from the populated valleys and been indoors. Flawed thinking perhaps, but…

Hiking-wise, 19 miles is a lot, though even though we had Stratton, that was the only significant elevation we had. The view is great up there because of the fire tower, though another casualty of the ‘Rona is the absence of the elderly couple who serve as caretakers at the summit. Someone left 3 Long Trail IPA’s at the trailhead to Stratton. Like good citizens we shared on and left two. Thanks for the trail magic whoever you are!

Beaver pond. Hard to capture how cool

this is.