stratton pond shelter to kid gore shelter

miles: 15.2

it was our warmest night yet. we both blew up in our sleeping bags. we set an alarm for 06:00hr so we could get an extra hour of hiking time. at the last minute, we decided to have breakfast at the lake, a .2 mile walk north on the trail. as we ate our breakfast the sun came up over stratton mountain and shone on the far side of stratton pond.

if that wasn’t great enough, we also heard a moose braying across the lake. rags, who should really be named mooseless, has yet to see one, so hearing one was pretty exciting.

we ate cold breakfast, granola and cold coffee. it was much more efficient and we were on trail before 07:30.

we hiked up stratton mountain, excited to see the view from the fire tower. when we got there, batgirl and bb were just leaving. we climbed the tower, but the glass at the top was all foggy due to some folks that had slept up there. we also were skeeved by the thought of a little box full of COVID, so we took our photos from the ladder below, before descending out of the wind for our morning snack.

we headed down the mountain for kelley stand rd, where we cross the east branch of the deerfield river. when we got there an older woman was trying to call a cab so she could abort her hike. rags let her use her phone, but the taxi company wouldn’t be able to make it until the afternoon.

on guthook, there was a note that a guy named charlie galante would drive hikers places. i gave her the number, and she called - not only could charlie pick her up, he would drive her to her car instead of into town where she’d have to catch a bus.

we sat in a nearby patch of grass and ate lunch. nearby was a sign letting us know we were about to cross the east branch of the deerfield river. it was our first sign that we’re getting close to home.

lunch over, the business was plans “A” and “B”. plan “A” had us staying at story spring shelter and getting to mass late on sunday. we were aiming for plan “B”, where we pushed hard today to kid gore shelter, and then had a few easy days and ended around lunch sunday.

we passed black brook on our way to story spring shelter.

we made it to story spring shelter and filtered some water. rags seemed uninterested in stopping, so we continued on. plan “B” it is.

as we hiked, rags’ feet got more and more painful, and our pace suffered. we did however pass a number of beautiful beaver bogs along the way.

at long last we reached a view 1 mile from kid gore shelter. rags removed her shoes and discovered that her insoles were part of the problem, so removed them. a brief snack and we were on our way. we arrived at kid gore shelter a little while later.

kid gore shelter was a bit of a mixed bag. we first discovered that there are no tent sites at the shelter, they’re north on the trail a few minutes where an old shelter used to be. the shelter also had no running water, just some puddles. again, the camp site up the trail had some running water. the privy i could smell from 30’ away. lastly, though kid gore has 3 small bear boxes, someone pried each of them open at some point, bending them so that mice are able to get in. all of them were full of mouse poop and food that hikers had left when they realized it had been infested. about the only thing it had going for it was a view.

rags and i retraced our steps back up the trail to the tent site and decided to hang our food. we had hot chocolate with ghee, and rags soaked her feet while i hung the bear lines. (we have two now, as hanging both our food bags on one line wasn’t working out, especially when they were full and heavy)