The Killington Section is hosting an unveiling ceremony for the new historical marker for the Long Trail Lodge on Saturday, September 27 at 4 p.m. Section President Herb Ogden, Historian David Wright, and Executive Director Mike DeBonis will all speak about the significance of this historical site. Free and open to the public.
The Green Mountain Club had many homes before today’s headquarters on Route 100 in Waterbury Center. We got our first home in 1924, a magical rustic structure enclosing giant boulders and other natural elements high on Sherburne Pass. The Green Mountain Club House was a gathering place for club members, hikers and visitors to the Killington area.
Renamed the Long Trail Lodge in 1925, it generated income as a guest house from 1924 to 1953. GMC leased it to Treadway Inns, an experienced hotelier, in 1933, then sold it (to Treadway) in 1953 to help pay down debt and start a trust fund, the seed for today’s endowment. It continued operations until it burned down in 1968, and some ruins are still visible, though screened from the highway by dense woods.
GMC’s Killington Section has been working to preserve the history and remains of the unique building. They reached a milestone this spring: A Vermont State roadside historical marker is ready for installation on Route 4 near the site.
Lodge History
The Club House was a generous donation by Mortimer Proctor, an early club supporter who became GMC’s President and later Vermont’s Governor. With vision and location in mind he hired Paul Thayer, an architect specializing in rustic style. Use of the surrounding landscape was the most notable characteristic of the lodge.
“The huge boulders deposited on its site in pre-historic time by some glacier or fallen from the cliff opposite…are a unique feature, being enclosed in the house in several places, forming parts of the wall, with ferns moss, and lichens growing on them as vigorously as outside,” the April 1924 Long Trail News commented.
Perhaps its most remarkable inclusion of the outdoors was the Long Trail itself, which ran right through the lodge, marked by indoor white blazes. According to historian David Wright, whose uncle was lodge manager for many years, “It came in through the south on the second level of the building, out the door, down through the porch, and out the main entrance of the building.”
The Long Trail and Appalachian Trail continued through the ruins of the lodge until 1999, when 4.2 miles of the LT/AT were relocated about a mile west to accommodate ski area expansion. The original route is now an official blue-blazed side trail, the Sherburne Pass Trail, though it bypasses the ruins.
The interior décor of twisted roots, bark on logs, and stuffed animals fully immersed the visitor in the spirit of the outdoors. It was intended as a home base for hikers, since Killington, Pico, and Carmel Mountains and Deer Leap provided numerous hiking opportunities. Like trailside hostels today, it offered comfortable beds, hot meals, and a chance to clean up and rest for end-to-end Long Trail hikers.
The Club House opened in 1924, shortly after the Long Trail News warned, “Too much should not be expected of the results of the first season, which will be experimental.”
At first, only club members and their recommended guests were served, but service quickly expanded to the public. It hosted the Green Mountain Club annual meeting every year until its demise. The facility was significantly enlarged in its first few years, with administrative and facilities outbuildings and cabins.
Deer’s Leap Annex was built across the road in 1939 for winter use. That building is now the Inn at Long Trail, still popular with Long Trail hikers.
Preserving Long Trail History
The Killington Section has been interested in preserving and restoring the lodge site for almost ten years. Installation of the new roadside historic marker is a major step in their plan to commemorate the GMC’s first home. “It means more people will learn about GMC’s first headquarters and the original location of the Long Trail,” says Killington Section President Herb Ogden, who visited the lodge as a teen,
The Long Trail Lodge roadside historical marker is the third one commemorating the impact of hiking in Vermont. The Long Trail historical marker, created in 1949, is now at the Long Trail parking lot at Route 2 in Bolton, and is visible from Interstate 89.
In 2022 the Burlington Section completed an application, and a Green Mountain Club historical marker was subsequently installed at the former site of the Van Ness Hotel, where Long Trail visionary James P. Taylor first met with 11 contemporaries to found the club in 1910. It is on the corner of Pine and Saint Paul Streets in Burlington.
Hike It!
To see the new marker, stop at the roomy parking lot at the Sherburne Pass Trailhead, south of Route 4 and across from the Inn at Long Trail. The former site of the Lodge is just west of the parking lot.
To explore the surrounding area, hike the Deer Leap Trail on the north side of the pass, which leads to an impressive rock outcrop overlooking Sherburne Pass. From the small lower parking lot at the Inn at Long Trail, enter the woods and wind uphill for 0.5 mile on the Sherburne Pass Trail. Reach the junction with the AT, and turn left for 220 feet. Then, hike the Deer Leap Trail 0.4 mile to the Deer Leap Overlook Spur. The 0.2-mile spur leads you to dramatic views of the Coolidge Range. Return the way you came, or make a loop: continue north on the Deer Leap Trail for 0.9 mile, summiting Deer Leap Mountain, and return eastward (trail north) on the AT (0.9 mile) and Sherburne Pass Trail (0.5 mile).
“One of my favorite early memories about Long Trail Lodge is climbing Deer Leap with my brothers, following the old Cave Trail through the rockfall below the cliffs,” David Wright recalls.
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