Buffum Lodge was a cabin-style shelter built by the Green Mountain Club and opened in 1961. Constructed using the Buchanan Camp architectural design, it served hikers on the Long Trail for five years. In the fall of 1966, vandals burned the lodge, destroying it along with another shelter, Deerview Camp, during a period of arson incidents affecting club facilities.
In a Long a Trail Patrol Report, Roy Buchanan minced no words:
But the vandals are on the job, as always. Up to now they have burned two camps this fall, Deerview and Buffum. Last summer the Patrol built three camps so we are one camp head of them at this writing …. but maybe they burned or chopped up another one last night. I am still agin them and still working on my vandal disposal. But what to do with the ground up bones of the bony headed Bone Heads when the dumps are full.
Following the fire, the Green Mountain Club made a deliberate decision not to rebuild Buffum Lodge, determining that shelter was not essential at that location and that resources might be better invested in constructing new facilities elsewhere on the trail system.
Sources
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington) 0034 (34). Killington Section, Green Mountain Club. 26.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington) 0034 (34). Killington Section, Green Mountain Club. 36.
- Long Trail News 1967 (1967). Green Mountain Club. 5.
- Long Trail News 1967 (1967). Green Mountain Club. 3.
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 17 ed. Green Mountain Club, 1963. Pp. 32.
