Couple retire as caretakers on Stratton Mountain after more than 50 years
Their love for the outdoors, and each other, never wavered even after half a century.
Their love for the outdoors, and each other, never wavered even after half a century.
Their love for the outdoors, and each other, never wavered even after half a century.
Stratton Mountain is the place both the Long Trail and the Appalachian Trail were conceived.
Hugh and Jeanne Joudry have been looking over Stratton’s trails for 54 years. Every spring making the trek up the mountain to live in a small cabin at the top. Their first time up was memorable.
“We took the chairlift to the top of Stratton, very old-fashioned chairlift,” Jeanne Joudry said. “And then we walked a mile over to the tower. And we went up into the tower. He said, well, this is your territory, learn it.”
May 1968 was the beginning of their adventure.
“We got snowed in, it was hailing and all he just left us there, like, in the rain, a little radio, we had broke down, too,” Hugh Joudry said.
Working for both the state of Vermont and the Green Mountain Club, they had started firewatchers on the top of the mountain and later transitioned into caretakers.
“I was paid to look to be in a state of contemplation, and quietness,” Hugh Joudry said. "And that was a very healing transformative effect. And so I go down off the mountain into Manchester. And I'm looking at everything around me in a very different way. Now, there is no rush, there's no hurry.”
They were responsible for cutting firewood, maintaining the trails and watching over hikers in the woods.
“You know everybody that we know, you know, we helped is made it out of there,” Jeanne Joudry said. “But I mean, there were there were some tricky times.”
They encountered bears, moose, deer and other wildlife regularly. One bear even tried to rip down the cabin door looking for curry.
“Then all of a sudden I realized why it was ripping down the door because its the head was a very polite bear but it had smelled it had smelled the curry,” Jeanne Joudry said.
They love all the hikers they get to meet and connect with and neighbors in the town see their hard work up close.
“They’ve made it really what it is up on the mountain, for people visiting and passing through, so I don’t know who’s going to replace them,” Lorraine Weeks Newell, owner of Stratton Parsonage, said. “But it’s going to be a mighty tall order.”
Their love for the outdoors, and each other, never wavered even after half a century.
“There's nothing like breathing fresh air, especially if you do it right,” Hugh Joudry said.