The first Griffith Lake Shelter stood approximately 100 feet south of the Long Trail between Peru Peak and Griffith Lake, in what is now Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest. The lake itself sits at an elevation of 2,605 feet in the towns of Peru and Mount Tabor, in the watershed once dominated by the lumber and charcoal operations of Silas L. Griffith. Water for the shelter was supplied by a small brook running directly in front of the structure.
Construction
The shelter was a log structure featuring an outside fireplace, built by the Green Mountain Club as part of the Long Trail shelter system. A photograph dated 1936 provides the earliest known documentation of the completed structure, establishing 1936 as the construction date. This is further corroborated by the shelter’s appearance in the Green Mountain Club’s Long Trail Guide Book beginning with the 1937 eleventh edition.
The shelter should not be confused with the CCC’s 1935 "Griffith Shelter" — a separate structure built near Peru Peak by the Civilian Conservation Corps’ Peru Camp that year, which was later renamed the Peru Peak Shelter in 1966. The Griffith Lake Shelter was a distinct GMC construction, at a different location.
Decades of Use
From its first appearance in the 1937 Long Trail Guide Book through the 1951 fourteenth edition, the shelter was described in consistent terms, reflecting a structure that remained essentially unchanged over those years. Its log construction and outside fireplace were characteristic of GMC shelter-building practices of the period, contrasting with the enclosed camp style and inside stoves common to some other Long Trail stations of the era.
Replacement
The original log shelter eventually ceased to serve its purpose and was replaced. In 1966, the United States Forest Service constructed a new wood-frame lean-to with bunks for six to eight hikers at the Griffith Lake site. That second Griffith Lake Shelter was itself destroyed by fire on October 17, 1975. The original log structure built by the Green Mountain Club no longer stands today. Griffith Lake is now managed as a tenting area with platforms maintained by the Green Mountain Club under a caretaker program.
Sources
Long Trail Guide Books
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 11th ed. Green Mountain Club, 1937. Pp. 22.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 12th ed. Green Mountain Club, 1940. Pp. 23.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 13th ed. Green Mountain Club, 1947. Pp. 22.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 14th ed. Green Mountain Club, 1951. Pp. 22.
Photographic Evidence
Photograph of Griffith Lake Shelter, dated 1936. Earliest known documentation of the completed structure.
Additional Sources
Podskoch, Martin. "The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Long Trail." Green Mountain Club, March 2024. (For the 1935 CCC "Griffith Shelter" / Peru Peak Shelter, a distinct structure.)
L.C. Everett. "Old Job Shelter (1960)." Appalachian Trail Histories. Appalachian Trail Conservancy Archives. (Notes the USFS built a new shelter at Griffith Lake after 1960.)
Wikipedia contributors. "Griffith Lake." Wikipedia.
