This fall, the Green Mountain Club rebuilt Tucker Johnson Shelter.
Tucker Johnson Shelter is located just north of Maine Junction on the Long Trail and is actually the third Long Trail shelter in the area. The first shelter was Tucker Lodge which was built by the Long Trail Patrol in 1938 and named after Fred H. Tucker of Boston, a longtime member of the Green Mountain Club. As Tucker Lodge began to fall into disrepair, Tucker Johnson Shelter was built as a replacement in 1969 by the Long Trail Patrol, shelter builder Louis “Sandy” Stare, and members of the Killington Section of the Green Mountain Club. That shelter was named for Fred H. Tucker and Otto Johnson of Proctor, VT, who bequeathed funds for its construction. It was unfortunately lost to fire in 2011.
A huge thank you goes to Johnathan Bigelow, a member from the Manchester Section of the GMC, who led the effort to rebuild the shelter. Jonathan was motivated by longtime member of the Manchester Section Marge Fish, who has dedicated decades of service to the Long Trail and Green Mountain Club. Rebuilding Tucker Johnson Shelter was a way for Jonathan to give back to the Long Trail and honor Marge’s volunteerism.
The new shelter replicates the original Tucker Johnson Shelter designed by 1970s GMC President George Pearlstein. The shelter is wood-framed with space for 6-8 campers and a liberal roof overhang to provide protection from the elements. Along with the new shelter, the GMC’s construction crew built a brand new fully accessible moldering privy to replace the old pit privy onsite.
The shelter was built over a weekend and the whole process went really well. The GMC is a community, and shelter building is one of the best expressions of the community spirit. We had a couple dozen volunteers over two days, with folks from the Manchester and Killington Sections and residents from the local area. Experience ranged from skilled carpenters to folks that had never swung a hammer before.
Jonathan and Club volunteers precut almost all of the materials to make transport and construction on site as efficient as possible. One group carried in materials, while another group worked on assembling the structure.
There are still a few minor details to finish up in the spring, but the shelter and privy are ready for use. Thank you to all of the volunteers who came out and supported this project!
You can see photos of the volunteer weekend build, as well as a partial timelapse of construction, in the video below:
[…] I did a little digging and discovered that the shelter was constructed by Green Mountain Club volunteers in fall 2018. (Read the story here.) […]