Lost Pond Shelter has a remarkable history marked by destruction and renewal. The original shelter was built by volunteer Louis "Sandy" Stare Jr., who in 1963 saw new U.S. Forest Service shelters at Little Rock Pond and was inspired to construct one himself.
Using a Forest Service blueprint, Stare constructed the shelter at his Cape Cod home in the winter of 1965, modifying the design so it could be disassembled, transported 250 miles to Vermont, and reassembled in the woods.
The shelter’s journey to the site involved an epic convoy: "a huge Timberjack tractor and heavy-duty wagon from Manchester" and approximately twenty GMC and non-GMC volunteers from four states arrived at USFS Road 10 in early May 1966.
According to club lore, the original shelter’s lumber, due to its exposure to salty sea breezes at Cape Cod, was especially popular with porcupines and succumbed to fire in 2001 when the shelter was burned by arsonists.
The 2002 rebuild was unusual in that materials were hauled to the site by draft horses and the shelter was built entirely with hand tools, but in 2006 it too was burned to the ground by parties unknown.
Lost Pond Shelter was rebuilt in 2009, once again without power tools, in keeping with its setting in the Big Branch Wilderness. The design for the three-sided log structure was based on historic Civilian Conservation Corps trail shelters, with special care taken in choosing local materials for construction.
The logs were cut by the Forest Service and peeled by a Yale service trip, and volunteers from 204 Depot Street in Bennington helped with the pack-in. The shelter remains standing today as a testament to GMC’s commitment to shelter stewardship and volunteer dedication.
Sources
- Long Trail News 2008 (2008). Green Mountain Club. 12.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington) 62 (2009). Killington Section, Green Mountain Club. 5.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington) 62 (2009). Killington Section, Green Mountain Club. 3.
- Long Trail News 2009 (2009). Green Mountain Club. 4.
- "Long Trail News." , no. Winter (2009).
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington) 66 (2013). Killington Section, Green Mountain Club. 12.
- Long Trail News 2014 (2014). Green Mountain Club. 24.
- Long Trail News 2015 (2015). Green Mountain Club. 2.
- Long Trail News 2015 (2015). Green Mountain Club. 5.
- Long Trail News 2019 (2019). Green Mountain Club. 23.
- Long Trail News 2021 (2021). Green Mountain Club. 12.
- Long Trail News 2021 (2021). Green Mountain Club. 21.
- Long Trail News 2022 (2022). Green Mountain Club. 16.
