glastenbury fire tower to spruce peak shelter

my alarm went off at 05:00 and i quickly got up the fire tower to see the sunrise. bugs, lyric, and rocket had a cold night at the top and didn’t stir much.

i got on trail just as bugs, lyric, and rocket were climbing off the tower for breakfast. the morning was nice and cool. there was a little breeze and i hiked the first 2 miles in my long underwear top. a couple more miles got me to kid gore shelter, where we were supposed to stay the night. i had heard that kid gore jad a good sunrise, anf it looked as if the sun had come up dead center of the valley it looked down.

i ran into maestro as i was leaving kid gore. it was a good thing because he would have walked right by it.

the morning presented a number of ponds, each more picturesque than the last.

the rest of the morning was approaching and climbing stratton mountain to the fire tower at the top. i climbed the tower snapped a couple photos and then found a shady spot to have lunch. a hiker who i had passed on the way up stopped to chat. he was hard of hearing, so our conversation was challenging, but he told me that he was one month away from his 80th birthday, and that he had thru-hiked the long trail last year!

after lunch i descended stratton mountain, to stratton pond where i stopped for a swim. i sat in the sun to dry out and talked to a couple of section hikers.

the afternoon from there was quiet moving. the trail was mostly flat. i was feeling a bit homesick, so i listened to my audio book for a while. i arrived at spruce peak shelter around 17:30. maestro arrived about a half hour later, and bugs, lyric, and rocket at almost 20:00. kick rolled in after 20:30.

some additional images from today: