Appalachian Trail Histories

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The Willis Ross Camp stood near the shore of Stratton Pond in Vermont until it burned in 1972 and was not rebuilt. It was an enclosed cabin-style shelter of the type often found along the Long Trail/Appalachian Trail in Vermont. It was built and maintained by the Green Mountain Club.

Collection: Trail Shelters
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The Governor Clement Camp near Killington, Vermont, on the Long Trail/Appalachian Trail in 1959. The Governor Clement Camp is a stone sided lean-to and is maintained by the Green Mountain Club.

Collection: Trail Shelters
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The Pico Peak Camp, now known as the Pico Camp, in November 1959 shortly after its completion. This shelter is one of the enclosed plank sided camps along the Long Trail/Appalachian Trail section in Vermont. It is maintained by the Green Mountain Club.

Collection: Trail Shelters
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The Old Job Shelter near Griffith Lake in Vermont in 1960, along the Long Trail/AT route near Mount Tabor, Vermont. The Old Job Shelter was built by the CCC during the early days of the Appalachian Trail/Long Trail. A few years after this photograph was taken, the U. S. Forest Service built a new shelter closer to the shore of Griffith Lake and named it the Griffith Lake Shelter. The Old Job Shelter was renamed the Peru Peak Shelter.

Collection: Trail Shelters
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The Clarendon Lodge Shelter on the Appalachian Trail/Long Trail in Vermont in the fall of 1960. This enclosed camp has been replaced by a lean-to style shelter and is maintained by the Green Mountain Club.

Collection: Trail Shelters
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The Melville Nauheim Shelter is located in Vermont's Woodford State Park, near the village of Woodford. It is part of the Long Trail shelter chain that the Appalachian Trail shares, and is maintained by the Green Mountain Club. This image offers a sense for how crowded the small trail shelters can become in popular sections of the Trail.

Collection: Trail Shelters
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Goddard Shelter on the Appalachian Trail and Long Trail in Southern Vermont, July 26, 2002.

Collection: Trail Shelters
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Stratton Pond Shelter on the Appalachian Trail and Long Trail in Vermont, July 24, 2002.

Collection: Trail Shelters
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The November 1937 edition of The Long Trail News includes a description of an encounter of several trustees of the Long Trail (Vermont) with a female hiker alone on her end to end hike of that Trail:

"When the trustees visited the Tucker camp north of the Long Trail Lodge on October 2, they found a woman in possession the only occupant. On being asked how many were in her party, she replied, "One." It was Miss Maud Ransom of New York City. She had come up on the bus to Rutland, and had tramped with her pack to this camp, where she was passing the first night. The next night she expected to stay at the Noyes Pond camp, the next at Carmel camp and the enxt at Sunrise camp, then walk to Brandon and take the bus home. Last season she started at the south end of the Trail and went as far as Rutland, and she proposes to finish the trek to the Canadian line in installments before she calls a hal. It may reasonably be inferred that she is a young woman of good physique, and self-reliant, fond of solitary wanderings in the wilderness, and unafraid."

Throughout the history of the Appalachian Trail, many women who have hiked on the Trail alone report similar encounters with concerned or even incredulous hikers, who wonder at the bravery or what they perceive to be foolhardiness of a woman hiking alone in the forest. This 1937 news item demonstrates just how pervasive these views of lone female hikers have been over the decades.