Located on a short loop trail near the site of the old Caughnawaga Shelter, Kid Gore is a log lean-to unlike any other structure on the Long Trail. Its east-facing open front offers spectacular sunrises and a full wash of moonlight at night. Double-deck bunks occupy each end; between them, a large central table seats eight to ten. The hilly and rocky ground gives the shelter an intimate relationship with the terrain — there is no tidy clearing before it, no “Monticello” front lawn, only the undulating Vermont forest.
Though open on its face like a standard Adirondack lean-to, Kid Gore was purpose-built to feel more like a lodge than a waystation — an intentional echo of the summer camp culture that created it.
The Man Behind the Name
Harold M. Gore — known universally as “Kid” — was one of the Long Trail’s quiet but enduring friends. For thirty-eight years he served in the Athletic Department at the University of Massachusetts, shaping young men through sport and mentorship. During summers, he operated Camp Najerog in Wilmington, Vermont, a boys’ camp where generations of young men discovered the Green Mountains and the trail running through them.
Kid Gore died in 1969, but his connection to the Long Trail predated him by decades. In 1931, it was Camp Najerog that built Caughnawaga Shelter at Glen Haven — the very structure that would later stand adjacent to the shelter bearing his name — and the camp maintained some five miles of trail in the region for many years afterward. His legacy was not merely institutional. As the _Long Trail News_ observed at the shelter’s dedication, his most lasting contribution was the part he played in shaping the lives of so many young men who passed through his camp and his classrooms.
Kid Gore passed away in 1969, an old friend of the Long Trail. It was his Camp Najerog that built Caughnawaga Shelter at Glen Haven in 1931 and maintained some five miles of trail.
Long Trail News, August 1971
When his former campers gathered in 1970 to plan a memorial, they reached instinctively for the language they knew best: logs, labor, and mountain trails.
Conception and the Campaign
The initiative to build Kid Gore Shelter began in 1970, when alumni of Camp Najerog, led by Harold M. Gore Jr. — known as Bob Gore, Kid’s son — launched a fundraising campaign. The drive netted seven hundred dollars, a modest sum that nonetheless reflected the depth of affection the camp community held for their mentor.
In late September 1970, forty-three camp alumni and Connecticut Section members gathered at the remote site to fell and peel the logs that would form the shelter’s framework. The location, 5.2 miles south of the Arlington–West Wardsboro Road near the old Caughnawaga Shelter, was deliberately chosen for its connection to Camp Najerog’s history. The job of making it accessible was itself a significant undertaking.
Bob Gore (Harold M. Gore Jr.) · Lead OrganizerAlan Mead · CoordinatorGeorge Bragdon · Construction ForemanRichard Bartlett · ArchitectRobert Attenborough · Trail Scout
The shelter’s design was entrusted to Richard Bartlett, an architect from Bloomfield, Connecticut, who conceived a structure that borrowed from the vocabulary of the closed camps and lodges the alumni knew — an open shelter with a lodge soul. Alan Mead of the Connecticut Section served as overall coordinator, and George Bragdon took on the role of construction foreman.
Finding a Route
Getting materials to the site was perhaps the first great challenge. The location was remote enough that a new access route had to be scouted before anything else could proceed. Alan Mead and Robert Attenborough explored the terrain from the Somerset area westward to the Long Trail, eventually identifying a route that would allow vehicles and snowmobiles to reach the site. This connector would later become known as the Nutmeg Trail — a name that nods to Connecticut’s identity as the Nutmeg State and the section that blazed the path.
Log by Log: Building in the Green Mountains
After the log-felling in September 1970, the project entered a long winter standstill. The site’s elevation and isolation proved formidable. In February and March of 1971, snow depths of five feet or more made reaching it all but impossible. On February 7 and again on March 20, crews — some equipped with snowmobiles — assembled near the former town of Somerset, 6.5 miles north of Route 9 on the western branch of the Deerfield River, and attempted to find a workable route. Both attempts fell short. As the May 1971 _Long Trail News_ reported, the best route was still “locked beneath several feet of snow and still in the hands of Mother Nature.”
Materials finally reached the site by snowmobile in late March. With the approach thawed and supplies in place, formal construction began the weekend of May 15–16, 1971, and work continued through the Memorial Day weekend. Progress was swift once it began. The shelter was completed on June 12, 1971 — just three weeks after construction commenced.
- Sept. 1970 – 43 alumni and CT Section members fell and peel logs at the site
- Feb. 7, 1971 – First attempt to reach site by snowmobile; route still snow-locked
- Mar. 20, 1971 – Second attempt; materials later transported by snowmobile in late March
- May 15–16 – Construction begins; work continues through Memorial Day weekend
- June 12, 1971 – Shelter completed — three weeks after construction commenced
- Aug. 29, 1971 – Official dedication ceremony; 113 people make the hike
The initial cost came to $450. The remaining funds — $191 of the $700 raised — were placed in a dedicated Kid Gore Fund to support future maintenance, an arrangement that would prove its worth many times over in the decades ahead.
A Shelter With a Lodge Soul
What distinguished Kid Gore from the outset was not just its size but its character. At twenty by twelve feet, it was unusually spacious — capable of sheltering fifteen people, with double-deck bunks at each end and a large central table that could seat eight to ten comfortably. The east-facing open front became a signature feature: morning light floods the interior at sunrise, and on clear nights the moon illuminates the shelter without need of a lantern.
Although it is an open shelter, it resembles and contains furnishings normally found in a closed camp. It is a spacious size, 20 × 12 feet with sleeping space for 15. Between the double-deck bunks on each end is a large table which can seat 8 to 10 people.
Long Trail News, November 1975
Richard Bartlett’s design was, in a sense, an architectural translation of the Camp Najerog spirit: communal, comfortable, oriented toward gathering rather than mere refuge. The hilly and rocky terrain shaped its siting — the shelter perches rather than sits, the ground declining away from its front in a way that enhances both the views and the shelter’s visual presence in the landscape.
The water source is a spring located approximately ten yards north of the shelter. It can be unreliable in dry seasons, and hikers have historically been advised to treat it or plan accordingly.
Dedication Day
On a Sunday in late August 1971, more than a hundred people made their way through the Vermont woods to attend the official dedication of the shelter. The final count was 113 — a remarkable turnout for a backcountry event that required a several-mile hike. George Bragdon and Bob Gore organized and led the program. It was, by any measure, a proper send-off: a crowd large enough to fill the shelter many times over, gathered to honor a man whose influence had reached so many of them.
The ceremony marked not just the opening of a shelter but the formalization of a living memorial. The Kid Gore Fund, established with the $191 left over from construction, would go on to support the shelter’s maintenance for the next half-century. The Connecticut Section of the Green Mountain Club took on stewardship responsibility and has maintained it ever since — a commitment that has been tested and renewed through decades of Vermont winters.
Half a Century of Stewardship
The record of Kid Gore’s maintenance history in the pages of the _Long Trail News_ and the Connecticut Section’s _Trail Talk_ is a study in the quiet heroism of volunteer trail stewardship. From its earliest years, the shelter has required regular attention — not because it was poorly built, but because a backcountry log structure in the Vermont mountains is in constant conversation with the elements.
- 1977 – Latrine rebuilt and relocated to a new position; directional signage improved
- 1989 – General rehabilitation of the shelter by Connecticut Section with Long Trail Patrol assistance
- 1996 – Privy construction planned at Kid Gore / Caughnawaga Shelters with Connecticut Section
- 2017 – Bear boxes installed at Kid Gore following black bear activity; hikers encouraged to store all food
- 2021- New ADA-accessible moldering privy installed by the GMC Construction Crew
- 2022 – New cedar-shingled roof installed; shelter jacked up; front left stone foundation rebuilt to correct structural lean and level the roof edge
Beyond these recorded interventions, the Connecticut Section has conducted annual trail and shelter maintenance throughout the shelter’s life, with dozens of individual work weekends documented across fifty years of newsletters. The Kid Gore Fund, seeded at the shelter’s completion, has continued to support this work — a perpetual endowment born from the $191 that remained when the logs were hewn and the first roof nailed.
Bears and the Backcountry
By 2017, black bear activity at Kid Gore and nearby Story Spring Shelter had become significant enough that the Green Mountain Club installed bear boxes at both sites — a sign of the times, as increased trail use and changing wildlife patterns brought human-bear encounters to shelters that had managed without intervention for decades. Hikers are still encouraged to use the boxes for all food and scented items.
Renewal: The Cedar Roof
By the time the GMC’s Construction Crew arrived at Kid Gore in 2022, the shelter was showing more than fifty years of wear. A 2018 structural assessment had documented a sagging roof in serious need of attention — the original wood shingles, possibly dating to the shelter’s 1971 construction, had reached the end of their serviceable life. The lean of the front left corner had begun to distort the roof edge.
The 2022 work was the most comprehensive intervention since the shelter was built. The crew installed a new cedar-shingled roof — cedar being the traditional material of long-lived Vermont structures, suited to the climate and the aesthetic of the backcountry. To address the structural lean, the crew jacked up the shelter and rebuilt the front left stone foundation, re-leveling the roof edge and restoring the shelter’s original geometry.
Kid Gore got a new cedar-shingled roof in 2022, courtesy of the GMC Construction Crew.
The 2022 renovation was also noted in the broader context of modern shelter construction requirements. Today, backcountry shelter work must comply with National Environmental Policy Act review, professional engineering approvals, and universal accessibility standards — a far cry from the 1971 project, which proceeded with a $700 fundraising haul, a snowmobile, and forty-three alumni with axes. The spirit, however, remained the same: the Connecticut Section, the Kid Gore Fund, and a community bound to a particular shelter in the Vermont woods.
Sources
Long Trail News_ (August 1971). Green Mountain Club.
Long Trail News_ (May 1971). Green Mountain Club.
Long Trail News_ (November 1975). Green Mountain Club.
Long Trail News_ (1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1998, 2001, 2005, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023). Green Mountain Club.
The Trail Talk (Connecticut)_ (1999–2023). Connecticut Section, Green Mountain Club.
Trail Talk (Montpelier)_ (2007, 2014, 2021). Montpelier Section, Green Mountain Club.
Ridgelines (Burlington)_ (Fall 2017). Burlington Section, Green Mountain Club.
Green Mountain Club. _Long Trail Guide Book_. 21st ed. (1977), pp. 25, 27.
Green Mountain Club. _Long Trail Guide Book_. 22nd ed. (1983), pp. 24, 26.
Green Mountain Club. _Long Trail Guide Book_. 23rd ed. (1985), p. 29.
Green Mountain Club. _Long Trail Guide Book_. 24th ed. (1996).
Woodward, Paul & Joanne. _Long Trail System Shelter History_. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999. P. 56.
GMC Shelters Database. Green Mountain Club, 2026.
Green Mountain Club · Connecticut Section · Long Trail, Vermont · Kid Gore Shelter · Est. 1971
