For more than fifty years, a log lodge sat on the north slope of Camel’s Hump, roughly a half mile below the site of the mountain’s famous Tin Huts, offering twelve bunks and a northward view over the Winooski Valley that hikers described in terms usually reserved for summits. Built in 1950 by the Long Trail Patrol as a memorial to a New York Section member who had loved the mountain since boyhood, Gorham Lodge was the most inaccessible camp the Patrol maintained on the Long Trail — 2.5 miles from the nearest pack-in point, set on state land whose management future was long uncertain, and demanding enough in its upkeep that a major rebuilding became necessary in 1981. The structure survived that renovation and served hikers for another two decades before the winter of 2001 brought it down: heavy snows displaced the lodge from its foundation, it was condemned as unsafe, and on December 7, 2001, it was intentionally burned. The Bamforth Ridge Shelter, a cedar log lean-to, was built north of the summit the following year.
Camel’s Hump and Its Earlier Shelters
Camel’s Hump — 4,083 feet, tied with Mount Ellen for third-highest peak in Vermont — carries one of the oldest sets of names in the Green Mountain landscape. The Abenaki knew it as Moziozagan, meaning moose’s shoulder. Samuel de Champlain’s party in 1609 called it "Le Lion Couchant" — the resting or crouching lion — a heraldic description that became the English "Couching Lion," the name still used affectionately alongside "Camel’s Hump" in mid-twentieth-century GMC correspondence. Ira Allen’s 1798 map recorded it as "Camel’s Rump"; "Camel’s Hump" entered common usage by 1830. In 1905, publisher and conservationist Joseph Battell donated the summit and surrounding acreage to Vermont with instructions to maintain it in a primitive state, laying the foundation for what became Camel’s Hump State Park.
The mountain attracted hikers early. A Camel’s Hump Club was organized in 1908 to improve access; by 1910, 700 people had climbed the peak in a single year. To accommodate overnight visitors, the clearing near the summit had hosted three corrugated metal shelters — universally known as the Tin Huts — since 1912: one for a caretaker, one designated for women, and one fitted with bunks for men. A caretaker was on duty and hikers were welcome. The Tin Huts served the mountain for four decades before the Long Trail Patrol’s postwar construction program brought more substantial log structures to the area. One of the Tin Huts was partially dismantled to supply roofing material for the new lodge below.
H.W. Gorham and the Memorial Fund
The February 1949 issue of the Long Trail News carried an announcement asking members of the New York Section to contribute to a shelter fund in honor of H.W. Gorham — known to his friends as Bill:
"In honor of H. W. Gorham, a member of the New York Section from 1923 until his death in August 1949, his friends are making contributions toward a new cabin or shelter on Camel’s Hump (or, if you prefer, Couching Lion) for which Prof. Buchanan has selected a new location, farther down the north slope than the present dilapidated shelters. Bill grew up in the St. Johnsbury region and was particularly fond of this mountain. Such a memorial seems particularly fitting for one whose love for man and earth, and whose appreciation of the comfort and gladness that association with forest and mountain can bring were so great."
Contributions were directed to Ronald Busse of Pearl River, New York, treasurer of the New York Section, payable to the H.W. Gorham Memorial Shelter Fund. The appeal captures something specific about the trail community’s memorial culture: the shelter was chosen not merely as a useful structure but as a form of expression — a place in the landscape that would embody the qualities of the man it honored, set on the mountain he had loved since childhood.
Roy Buchanan, who had led the Long Trail Patrol since its founding in 1931, had already scouted and selected the building site. Construction would begin the following summer.
Construction: 1950
The Long Trail Patrol built Gorham Lodge in 1950, funded by the New York Section’s memorial contributions. The November 1950 Long Trail News published a detailed account of the project:
"The Lodge is about 1/2 mile north from the old ‘Tin Huts,’ one of which was dismantled to provide roofing material and stands on the edge of a quick drop off, with a magnificent view to the north over the Winooski Valley. Bolton Falls and the main road near it are clearly visible, as is Little River Reservoir. The lodge is only 500 feet west of the old LT and close to excellent water. The structure is built of logs, probably the largest ones that have been used in any camp to date, laid horizontally up to the bottoms of the windows and vertically above, which results in more efficient use of timber and saves time. The lodge is about 15 by 20 ft. in size and has a stove brought down from one of the old huts. It is located wonderfully but is the most inaccessible camp for the Patrol to work on. All materials that could not be cut at the site or dragged down from the Huts had to be packed in 2 1/2 mile from Couching Lion Farm. This took time, sweat, and muscle."
The hybrid log construction — horizontal courses from the ground to window level, vertical logs above — was the Long Trail Patrol’s established technique from the 1930s, first employed at Glen Ellen Lodge in 1933 when a shortage of usable timber on a lumbered-over slope forced the builders to improvise. What began as a workaround at Glen Ellen became a deliberate building method: by 1950 the Patrol was adopting it for its efficiency as much as its practicality, and Gorham Lodge’s logs — the largest used in any Long Trail camp to that point — demonstrated the technique at a new scale.
The stove salvaged from the Tin Huts provided the only heat in a lodge that sat at considerable elevation on the north slope of one of Vermont’s highest peaks. A brook to the east of the site provided water.
The Setting and the View
What the 1950 account called "located wonderfully" was not an exaggeration. Gorham Lodge sat on the edge of a quick drop-off looking north over the Winooski Valley, a prospect that included Bolton Falls, the main road along the valley floor, and the Little River Reservoir. The Winooski — which has carved its way through the Green Mountain backbone over millennia — creates a gap in the ridgeline, and from the north slope of Camel’s Hump the valley spread broadly below, with the mountains beyond it silhouetted against the northern sky.
Paul Woodward, whose Long Trail System Shelter History drew on decades of personal experience on the trail, recorded the view in terms that few shelter sites provoke:
"The views at night at Gorham Lodge are superb in clear weather. I remember a 2 a.m. walk with the moon and stars lighting my way. The few lights in the valley in homes and on the highway were just impressive. The mountains to the north were silhouetted, giving me a mystic feeling of grandeur."
This was the paradox of Gorham Lodge: the most inaccessible camp the Patrol maintained, requiring a 2.5-mile pack-in from the Couching Lion Farm site for any materials not available on site — and yet a shelter whose setting, once reached, consistently left hikers searching for language beyond the merely descriptive.
State Property and the Management Debate
Gorham Lodge’s position complicated its long-term future from the beginning. Camel’s Hump State Park is Vermont state land, and the lodge — built on that land at high elevation — occupied territory whose management the state had not yet fully defined. By the time of the 1981 Long Trail News report, the lodge was described as "a source of debate for many years," with the state retaining final authority over its destiny pending completion of a management plan for the area.
The 24th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1996) listed the lodge with an operational date of "1985 to present" — a phrasing that likely reflects the period after the state’s management planning had clarified the lodge’s status, rather than an actual gap in use. The extensive rebuilding in 1981 and the investment of volunteer time that year would make little sense if the lodge had been formally out of service for the preceding years; more probably, the 1985 date marks when the state management plan was finalized and the lodge’s continued operation on state land was officially sanctioned.
The 1981 Rebuilding
By 1981, the structure — then thirty-one years old — had deteriorated to the point where substantial intervention was needed. The November 1981 Long Trail News reported that eight logs had been replaced and leveled, a new floor installed, window frames adjusted, a new door hung, and several coats of creosote applied to protect the wood. The project took ten days. A photograph in the issue showed the work crew: Ben Davis, Chet Buchanan, Dean Tucker, Charlotte Beam, Fuss Belding, Steve Burns, and Cleo Billings.
The effort restored the lodge to serviceable condition, but the context of the 1981 report acknowledged the broader uncertainty. The state’s final word on the lodge’s future had not yet come. The rebuilding was an act of faith in the shelter’s continued relevance, made before the outcome of the management planning was known.
Snow Damage and the December 2001 Burn
In the winter of 2001, heavy snow accumulation on the north slope of Camel’s Hump pushed Gorham Lodge from its foundation. The displacement was severe enough that the structure was condemned as unsafe. The Long Trail News (Spring 2002) reported that it was deemed unsafe and burned in December — specifically on December 7, 2001. The burn was a deliberate management decision, not an accidental fire: on state land, at high elevation, in roadless terrain, controlled burning was the most complete and practical means of removing a structure that could no longer be safely repaired or used.
The lodge had served for fifty-one years. The Bamforth Ridge Shelter — a cedar log lean-to built in 2002 — was sited north of the Camel’s Hump summit along the Long Trail, providing overnight accommodation for hikers on the same general corridor that Gorham Lodge had served.
Sources
- "Long Trail News." , no. November (1950).
- "Long Trail News." , no. November (1981).
- Long Trail Guide Book. 24th Edition ed. Green Mountain Club, 1996.
- "Long Trail News." , no. Spring (2002).
- Paul Woodward.
