The second Montclair Glen Lodge was a short-lived open-front shelter that stood from approximately 1940 to 1948, situated in a small clearing on the Long Trail 0.2 miles south of where the current (third) lodge stands today. Authorized by the New York Section in May 1940 following the deterioration of Professor Monroe’s original 1918 structure, it occupied what a 1948 Long Trail News would call an "uninviting location"—and, by most accounts, it met the same adversary as its predecessor: porcupines. In 1948, Roy Buchanan and the Long Trail Patrol built a third and superior lodge nearby, and the clearing where the second had stood was eventually preserved only in the name of the Allis Trail, which for decades began at that site.
A Note on Sources
Primary sources dealing specifically with the second Montclair Glen Lodge are sparse. As the Winter 2008 issue of the Long Trail News noted plainly: "Little is known about the second of the three Montclair Glen shelters." The most complete direct accounts are the Woodward Long Trail System Shelter History (1999), which records the New York Section’s 1940 authorization and the shelter’s location; the 13th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1947), the only guide edition to describe the shelter in use; and the Long Trail News of Winter 2008 and Fall 2004, which profile the lodge in the context of its restoration of the third shelter. The guide books of adjacent years (12th ed., 1940; 14th ed., 1951) and the 21st edition (1977) help bracket the shelter’s lifespan and mark its former site.
Setting
Montclair Glen is a broad, forested glacial hollow on the south slopes of Camel’s Hump (4,083 ft.), at an elevation of approximately 2,670 feet. It sits near the heart of the Monroe Skyline, the 30-mile section of the Long Trail between Lincoln Gap and the Winooski River that Professor Will S. Monroe of Montclair, New Jersey built and stewarded from 1916 until his death in 1939. Monroe named the glen for his hometown.
The glen is reached today via the Forest City Trail from Huntington Center to the west, and by the Long Trail itself from the south (via Cowles Cove Shelter and Burnt Rock Mountain) and from the north (via Camel’s Hump and Gorham Lodge). The area has been part of Monroe State Park since Couching Lion Farm—Monroe’s home—was acquired by Vermont after his death.
The two approach trails at the glen’s southern end converge near a distinctive junction: the Forest City Trail meets the Long Trail at the site of Monroe’s original 1918 lodge, about 200 feet north of the present (third) lodge. The second lodge stood somewhat farther south, in a clearing the trail passes through before reaching the current structure.
Background: Monroe’s First Lodge (1917–c.1940)
Professor Monroe built the first lodge at Montclair Glen in 1917 or 1918, as part of his extraordinary effort to cut, clear, and furnish the ridgeline trail that now bears his name. The original structure was an open camp—four double-deck pole bunks sleeping twelve, a stove, simple cooking utensils, excellent permanent water, and what Walter Collins O’Kane described in 1926 as "a tiny flower garden" close to the lodge wall.
The lodge was a gathering place for Monroe and his trail-working friends through the 1910s and 1920s, and later a popular overnight stop for Long Trail hikers. It lacked windows originally; according to a story told by New York Section member Grace Carpenter and repeated in multiple later accounts, Monroe and a companion once descended the mountain after a full day’s trail work specifically to negotiate the purchase of a window from a farmer, then carried it back up and installed it so occupants could admire the sunset from inside.
Monroe died in 1939. The same adversary that plagued other shelters along the Monroe Skyline—porcupines—proved fatal to the first lodge. Ernest Anderson, a member of the New York Section who helped build the third lodge in 1948, wrote that Monroe’s shelter "gradually became a haven for porcupines that ‘literally ate the place down.’" By 1940, the time for a replacement had come.
Authorization and Construction (1940)
The May 1940 issue of the Long Trail News recorded that the New York Section had been authorized "to relocate certain portions of the Trail and rebuild the Montclair Glen Shelter." This is the founding moment of the second lodge.
The 1940 edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (12th edition), published that same year, still carried the specifications of the old structure—"open front with 2 double-deck pole bunks for 12; stove and simple cooking utensils; excellent water"—suggesting the new shelter had not yet been completed when the guide went to press. By the time the 13th edition appeared in 1947, the second lodge had been in use for several years and carried a modified description.
The builder or builders of the second lodge are not named in surviving records. By analogy with the 1948 reconstruction—which was explicitly carried out by the Long Trail Patrol for the New York Section—the second lodge was most likely a New York Section project, possibly with Long Trail Patrol assistance, using timber harvested on-site. The New York Section paid for any building materials that required purchase.
The Second Lodge in Use (c.1940–1948)
The 13th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1947) offers the only direct guidebook description of the second lodge in active use:
"Three and one-half miles north of Burnt Rock Mountain is Montclair Glen Shelter, open front with bunks for 8; stove and simple cooking utensils; water, a short distance to the west. This shelter is to be rebuilt, probably in 1948, in a better location somewhat farther to the west."
Several details in this description are notable. The shelter was open-front in the traditional lean-to style—the same construction type as Monroe’s original lodge, and not the enclosed Buchanan-style cabin that would replace it. The bunk capacity had dropped from twelve to eight, perhaps reflecting the smaller scale of the rebuild or the reduced usable structure. The water source had also shifted; earlier guides had noted "excellent permanent water" directly at the original lodge site, while the 1947 guide places the water "a short distance to the west."
The shelter’s location, 0.2 miles south of the present lodge, appears to have been considered problematic from early on. The Winter 2008 Long Trail News describes it as a clearing the Long Trail reaches before the current lodge, placed in what the November 1948 Long Trail News called an "uninviting" location. The 1947 guide’s announcement that rebuilding was likely "in a better location somewhat farther to the west" suggests the shelter’s placement had been recognized as inadequate—whether for exposure, drainage, trail alignment, or some combination.
Porcupines remained a problem. "Anecdotal evidence suggests porcupines were critical to its demise," the 2008 Long Trail News noted. With the first lodge already destroyed by the animals and no creosote or enclosed construction to deter them, the second lodge may have suffered steady deterioration during its eight years of use.
Replacement by the Third Lodge (1948)
In the summer of 1948, Roy Buchanan—then chief of the Long Trail Patrol, builder of more than thirty enclosed shelters across the Long Trail system, and a professor of education at the University of Massachusetts—led the construction of a new Montclair Glen Lodge nearby. The project was assisted by volunteers from the New York Section, including Ernest Anderson and Bob Johnson of the Amherst College outing club, who as a warm-up for the construction work had hiked south on the Long Trail from Route 15 in Johnson.
The new lodge was built in the classic "Buchanan style": a fully enclosed log cabin with bunks for eight (twelve with what the 1948 Long Trail News called "reasonable discomfort"), a good stove, and the finishing touch of a coat of creosote oil to protect the wood and discourage porcupines. The November 1948 Long Trail News boasted: "When you are up this way, drop in and see the new Montclair Glen Camp. It is a credit to those who built it and an ornament to the Long Trail."
The third lodge was situated "just 200 feet above the site Professor Monroe had originally chosen, where the Forest City Trail descends from the Long Trail"—that is, back near the Forest City Trail junction that Monroe himself had selected in 1918. The second lodge’s clearing, 0.2 miles to the south, was left behind.
The Site After 1948
The second lodge’s clearing did not entirely disappear from Long Trail literature. From at least the 1950s, a short connector path known as the Allis Trail ran from the old clearing north to Wind Gap, bypassing the current lodge. The 1956 Long Trail Guide Book described it as beginning "at the site of old Montclair Glen Shelter," with a short side spur to Allis Lookout offering views of the Adirondacks. The 1977 edition was more explicit: the Long Trail "reaches a small clearing (7.8 m.) where the second Montclair Glen Shelter was once located. Straight ahead is the Allis Trail." Hikers who passed through in the 1960s and 1970s would have been able to orient themselves to the history of the site by reading the guide.
The Allis Trail remained a feature of the guidebook through at least the 21st edition (1977). The clearing itself gradually returned to forest.
Sources
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 12th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1940, p. 47.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 13th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1947, p. 45.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 14th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1951, p. 41.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 15th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1956, pp. 84–85.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 16th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1960, pp. 86–87, 90.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 21st ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1977, pp. 112–113.
Larson, Matt. "Restoring Montclair Glen Lodge." Long Trail News, Winter 2008, p. 4.
Long Trail News, November 1948, p. [n.p.] (quoted in Larson 2008).
Long Trail News, May 1940 (cited in Woodward 1999).
Long Trail News, Fall 2004, p. 8. [Shelter profile: Montclair Glen Lodge.]
O’Kane, Walter Collins. Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1926, p. 229.
Woodward, Paul & Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1999, p. 76.
