Mad Tom Camp (2nd) was a GMC-built open-front shelter that stood on the north side of an abandoned road between East Dorset and Peru — the "Mad Tom Road" — at the foot of the steep descent from Styles Peak on the Long Trail’s Division III. Built in December 1922 to replace a deteriorated earlier cabin at the same site, the camp occupied one of the most strategically significant locations on the southern Long Trail: it served as the terminus of Division III and the starting point of Division IV, making it a fixed reference point in every edition of the Long Trail Guide Book from the 1920s through the early 1930s. With capacity for twenty to twenty-four hikers and a water supply just to the east, it was one of the largest shelters on the trail at the time of its construction. By 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps had built a new shelter at the same location, displacing the 1922 GMC camp. A photograph from the late 1930s labels the original structure "Old Mad Tom Camp," suggesting it remained standing for some years after the CCC replacement was completed. The location was rebuilt again in 1962 when the U.S. Forest Service erected a new leanto at Mad Tom Notch.
Setting: The East Dorset–Peru Road
Mad Tom Camp stood on an abandoned highway that once connected the village of East Dorset, in the Mettawee Valley west of the Green Mountains, with Peru, on the eastern slopes. By the time the Long Trail reached this location in the early 1920s, the road had long since been closed to traffic and was reverting to forest. The trail descended steeply from Styles Peak (elevation 3,404 ft) and emerged onto the old roadbed, where the flat, open surface — "the ruts of the abandoned road," as one hiker described it in 1930 — offered a natural campsite on the north side of the road corridor.
The location placed the camp at the precise boundary between two long trail divisions. In the 9th edition (1932), Division III was defined as running from the Arlington-Wardsboro Road to Mad Tom Camp (26 miles), while Division IV ran from Mad Tom Camp north to the Wallingford-East Wallingford Road (32 miles). Every Long Trail Guide Book from the mid-1920s through the early 1930s organized its Division III and Division IV summaries around this camp as the dividing landmark.
The elevation of 2,400 feet placed the camp high on the south flank of the Bromley-Styles ridge, above the valley communities of Peru and East Dorset but well below the summits on either side. Water was available "a little way to the east," as the guidebooks consistently noted.
The First Mad Tom Camp
A shelter had existed at the East Dorset-Peru road crossing before 1922. The 4th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1922) — published in the same year the new camp was built, almost certainly before the new construction — described the site in plain terms: "Trail drops steeply here to a deserted highway from East Dorset to Peru and just south is a small but habitable cabin, Mad Tom Camp, with stove and double deck bunks, in bad condition from hedgehogs. Good water is to be had a little way to the east."
This original cabin — "Mad Tom Camp (1st)" in the GMC shelter database — was a cramped structure with conventional double-deck bunks rather than the open-front design that characterized the early GMC shelters. Its "bad condition from hedgehogs" (porcupines, in New England usage) was a familiar complaint about older mountain cabins: porcupines gnaw on salt-impregnated wood surfaces, particularly ax handles, door frames, and bunks, and will hollow out unattended structures over a few seasons of occupation. The cabin’s deterioration prompted the Green Mountain Club to build a replacement.
Construction of the Second Camp, December 1922
The December 1922 issue of The Green Mountain News announced the construction: "A new shelter was built on the East Dorset–Mad Tom Road, between Styles’ Peak and Bromley Mt." Nothing further is known from surviving records about the builders, the construction timeline, or the cost.
By the 6th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1924), the new camp had been integrated into the official guidebook description: "Trail drops steeply here to a deserted highway from East Dorset to Peru, where the G. M. C. Mad Tom Camp is located, an open-front camp with stove and bunks for 24 people. Good water is to be had a little way to the east." The designation "G. M. C. Mad Tom Camp" marked it formally as a Green Mountain Club shelter, built and maintained by the Club to the standard design of the era: open front, stove, and double-deck bunks.
The new camp was considerably larger than its predecessor. Where the 1st camp had been "small but habitable," the 1922 replacement accommodated twenty-four hikers — making it one of the largest shelters on the southern Long Trail at the time of its construction.
The Camp in Use: 1924–1932
Walter O’Kane’s Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains (1926) described Mad Tom Camp from the perspective of a northbound hiker descending from Bromley Mountain:
"Descending the northerly slopes of the mountain the path emerges upon a deserted road which leads to the left to East Dorset. On the north side of the road there is a Club shelter, Mad Tom Camp, which accommodates twenty to twenty-four people. A supply of water will be found a little way east."
The 7th edition (1928) and 8th edition (1930) repeated the same description of the camp as "an open-front camp with stove and bunks for 24 people." Through these years the camp served the same essential function: a large-capacity shelter at a major trail junction, positioned to receive hikers arriving from either Bromley Mountain to the south or Styles Peak to the north after steep descents.
The Long Trail News for June 1930 captured a hiker’s ground-level experience at the camp. Reporting on a traverse of the southern Long Trail, the correspondent wrote: "The trail from Mad Tom Camp (where a deer jumped across between us as we lay in the ruts of the abandoned road) to Buffum Pond, almost sent us home to mother, for weaving a pattern over and under fallen timber with a pack is no way to spend a summer holiday, and Styles Peak was a nightmare, but a swim in the pond and the lovely road down to Griffith Camp cheered us considerably." The passage vividly captures the character of the camp’s setting — hikers resting on the old road surface, lying in the ruts, watching a deer cross — and the difficulty of the terrain to the north that made the shelter a welcome stopping point.
The Long Trail News for August 1931 reported more prosaically on camp conditions: "Mad Tom Camp, Aeolus View Camp and Swezey Camp were in good repair when inspected by patrol." The Long Trail patrol’s annual inspection tour covered all maintained shelters, and Mad Tom Camp’s inclusion alongside two other well-known southern shelters confirms its status as a regular and dependable stop.
By the 9th edition (1932), the camp’s listed capacity had dropped from 24 to 16, though the structure’s description remained "open front with stove and bunks." The reduction likely reflects a more conservative assessment of usable bunk space rather than physical deterioration — the 1931 patrol report had found the camp in good condition.
The 1934 CCC Shelter
By the time the 10th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book appeared in 1935, a new shelter had replaced the 1922 GMC camp at the same location. The entry reads: "Mad Tom (Notch) Shelter (1934) … Abandoned East Dorset-Peru Road … open front with stove and bunks for 8 or 10." The CCC built this structure in 1934, on the same road corridor as the GMC camp but at the notch that now bears the name "Mad Tom Notch." Later editions would describe it consistently as a CCC log structure built for the U.S. Forest Service, with bunk space for 8 to 12.
The shift in capacity — from 24 at the peak of the GMC camp down to 8–12 in the CCC structure — reflects both different design standards and the likely physical limitations of the new site. The name also shifted: the earlier camp had been described simply as "Mad Tom Camp" with reference to the abandoned highway; the CCC shelter introduced the "notch" designation, connecting the site to the geographic feature now known as Mad Tom Notch.
A photograph in the GMC collection labeled "Old Mad Tom Camp, late 1930’s" shows the original 1922 structure still standing some years after the CCC replacement was completed. The use of "old" to distinguish the 1922 GMC camp from the new CCC shelter confirms that both structures were present at the site into at least the late 1930s.
The Long Trail News for February 1934, reporting on the GMC annual meeting, listed trail sections by division in a way that used "Mad Tom camp" as a geographic reference point in club business — evidence that the name and location remained significant landmarks in the club’s organizational framework even as the structure itself was being superseded.
The 1962 USFS Replacement
In 1962, the U.S. Forest Service replaced the 1934 CCC shelter with a new prefabricated frame leanto. The 20th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1971) described the result: "Mad Tom Shelter, a frame leanto with bunks for 6 to 8, built by the USFS in 1962. Water supply is a spring 300 ft. east." This shelter was positioned 300 feet north of USFS Road No. 21 at the summit of Mad Tom Notch, slightly removed from the old road corridor where the original 1922 camp had stood.
A Note on the Database End Year
The GMC shelter database assigns end_year 1962 to Mad Tom Camp (2nd). The primary sources suggest the 1922 GMC camp was superseded around 1934 when the CCC built its replacement. The database end year of 1962 most likely reflects the final replacement at the Mad Tom location — when the USFS prefab replaced the 1934 CCC structure — rather than the precise date at which the 1922 GMC structure ceased to exist. The photograph labeled "Old Mad Tom Camp, late 1930’s" indicates the original camp stood for at least several years after the 1934 CCC shelter was built, but the date of its final removal is not documented in surviving sources.
Sources
Green Mountain Club (GMC). GMC Shelter Database, Shelter ID 000158: Mad Tom Camp (2nd).
Green Mountain Club (GMC). GMC Shelter Database: Downloaded History, Shelter ID 000158.
Paul and Joanne Woodward. Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd edition. Green Mountain Club, September 10, 1999. p. 72. [Cites The Green Mountain News, December 1922: "A new shelter was built on the East Dorset–Mad Tom Road, between Styles’ Peak and Bromley Mt."]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 4th edition. Green Mountain Club, 1922. p. 35. [Quote: "a small but habitable cabin, Mad Tom Camp, with stove and double deck bunks, in bad condition from hedgehogs."]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 6th edition. Green Mountain Club, 1924. pp. 43–44. [Quote: "the G. M. C. Mad Tom Camp is located, an open-front camp with stove and bunks for 24 people."]
Walter Collins O’Kane. Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains. The Riverside Press, 1926. pp. 386–388. [Quote: "On the north side of the road there is a Club shelter, Mad Tom Camp, which accommodates twenty to twenty-four people."]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 7th edition. Green Mountain Club, 1928. pp. 47–48.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 8th edition. Green Mountain Club, 1930. pp. 44, 46.
Long Trail News (June 1930). Green Mountain Club. p. 3. [Quote: "The trail from Mad Tom Camp (where a deer jumped across between us as we lay in the ruts of the abandoned road) to Buffum Pond, almost sent us home to mother…"]
Long Trail News (August 1931). Green Mountain Club. p. 3. [Quote: "Mad Tom Camp, Aeolus View Camp and Swezey Camp were in good repair when inspected by patrol."]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 9th edition. Green Mountain Club, 1932. pp. 6, 18–21, 23. [Confirms Division III/IV boundary; "open front with stove and bunks for 16."]
Long Trail News (February 1934). Green Mountain Club. p. 2.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 10th edition. Green Mountain Club, 1935. pp. 17, 21. [First appearance of "Mad Tom (Notch) Shelter (1934)," confirming the CCC replacement.]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 20th edition. Green Mountain Club, 1971. p. 30. [Quote: "Mad Tom Shelter, a frame leanto with bunks for 6 to 8, built by the USFS in 1962."]
