Noyes Pond Camp was built in 1925 by the Proctor Section of the Green Mountain Club and the GMC Trail Committee to address a specific problem: the existing shelter at Noyes Pond was a single-bunk private log structure that belonged to someone outside the Club and offered hikers almost nothing. The new camp was a log cabin placed just a few yards from the south shore of Noyes Pond — close enough to the water to provide the lakeside atmosphere that made this location attractive, with the added amenities of GMC ownership, Club maintenance, and reliable spring water close at hand. A second GMC lean-to already existed at the pond, on a bluff about 100 yards back from the water (ID 171, built 1923), and the 1925 construction at the shore created a two-shelter GMC presence that would persist, in various configurations, for the next forty years. The Proctor Section rebuilt the camp in 1937 at a cost of $137.64, using salvaged material from an older slope shelter. Rolston’s Rest replaced it in 1966, sited three-quarters of a mile south along Jimmie Deane Brook. After that, the old camp was demolished.
Construction and First Description
The Long Trail News of December 1925 announced the construction. Walter Collins O’Kane, who hiked the Long Trail and wrote about it in Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains (1926), confirmed the new camp’s existence a year after it was built:
A shelter owned by the Club was built in 1925. There is good water close to the shelter and the pond’s only a few yds away.
"A shelter owned by the Club" — the phrase distinguished the new structure from the private log lodge (ID 170) near the shore that had served hikers since before 1920. The construction of ID 169 was the GMC’s direct answer to the inadequacy of that private lodge, which had only one bunk. The new camp at the water’s edge, combined with the already-standing slope shelter on the bluff above (ID 171), gave hikers two Club-maintained options at the pond for the first time.
O’Kane’s title for this leg of the trail — "Sherburne Pass to Noyes Pond Camp" — used the name "Camp" rather than "Lodge," suggesting that by 1926 the GMC had already settled on distinguishing the two types of accommodation at the pond. The shore structure was a "Camp" (closed, log, near water); the slope structure was the "Lodge" or "Shelter" (open-front, elevated). This distinction appeared consistently in the Long Trail Guide Book from the 9th edition (1932) onward, though the names shifted and overlapped frequently.
The April 1934 Inventory and Early 1930s Context
The April 1934 Long Trail News published a statewide shelter inventory that listed both "Noyes Pond Camp" and "Noyes Pond Shelter" as active and distinct structures — one near the shore, one on the slope. By this point two more structures had appeared at the pond: the privately-owned frame camp (ID 168), built in 1932 and photographed as early as 1931. The pond briefly hosted four structures in overlapping use — the private log lodge on the shore (ID 170), the original GMC slope shelter (ID 171), the GMC shore camp (ID 169), and the privately-owned frame camp (ID 168).
Nine photographs in the GMC shelter database document activity at ID 169 during this period. One, labeled "Party at Noyes Pond Camp, 9/3/30," shows hikers gathered at the camp before ID 168 was completed. Another, labeled "Noyes Pond Lodge, 1933," was taken the year the privately-owned frame camp was formally opened, and may reflect the continued naming confusion at the site. A third, "Party from N.Y. at Noyes Pond Camp," documents the camp as a destination for organized hiking groups from outside Vermont — evidence of the site’s appeal on the Long Trail’s popular southern divisions.
The 1937 Rebuild
The most consequential event in ID 169’s history was the Proctor Section’s 1937 rebuild. The July 1937 Long Trail News explained the circumstances:
The land around Noyes Pond has not yet been acquired by the Federal Government and the Forestry Service will not build camps on land not owned by them. The Proctor Section therefore has had to replace the old shelter at Noyes Pond. This camp will probably be completed this week-end as it is all finished except the roof, doors, shutters and bunks.
Because the land around the pond remained in private hands, the U.S. Forest Service declined to invest in shelter construction there. The GMC — specifically the Proctor Section — was left to fund and build any replacement on its own. The November 1937 Long Trail News reported the finished project:
The Proctor Section has built a new open front camp at Noyes Pond. The cost of the new shelter at Noyes Pond was $137.64. The cost of this camp was fairly low due to use of some of the material from the old shelter and to some volunteer labor.
"Material from the old shelter." The rebuilt structure was the Proctor Section’s fourth major work at Noyes Pond and was understood explicitly as a replacement. The 12th edition (1940) describes the result as "a new camp on the slope about 100 yards back of the Pond, near a fine spring. The new camp has a stove and bunks for 10." The phrase "on the slope about 100 yards back" matches the traditional description of ID 171 (the bluff-side lean-to), not ID 169’s original near-shore position — suggesting the 1937 rebuild was placed near the site of the slope shelter (ID 171) rather than where the original ID 169 shore camp had stood. If so, the rebuilt structure merged the two earlier GMC positions at the pond into one: it took ID 171’s salvaged materials and location, but was administered as the continuation of the shore camp (ID 169) that the Proctor Section had built in 1925.
This interpretation is consistent with the database’s decision to list a single 1937 rebuild under ID 169 rather than creating a new entry — the section’s own history treated the 1937 camp as an upgrade of its existing commitment at the pond, not a new structure.
Postwar Years: The Privately-Owned Period
After the 1947 collapse of the original private log lodge (ID 170), the Noyes Pond shelter inventory reduced to two structures: the Proctor Section camp (ID 169) and the privately-owned frame camp (ID 168). The 13th edition (1947) describes the rebuilt slope camp as "a newer camp on the slope about 100 yards back of the Pond" — it remained active as late as 1951 at minimum, when it still appeared in guidebook descriptions.
By the 15th edition (1956) and 16th edition (1960), the guidebooks describe only one structure at Noyes Pond — "this camp, located 300 ft. back from Noyes (South) Pond, is of frame construction with bunks for about 8" — which matches the privately-owned ID 168 exactly. No GMC camp is mentioned separately. Whether the Proctor Section camp (ID 169) had fallen into disrepair, been informally merged with the private camp in guidebook descriptions, or had been quietly abandoned during the 1950s is not clear from available sources. The database’s end date for ID 169 is 1965 — suggesting the GMC maintained it, or at least maintained a record of it, through the mid-1960s, even if it had dropped from routine guidebook coverage.
Replacement by Rolston’s Rest
In 1966, the Long Trail Patrol built a new open-front frame lean-to on Jimmie Deane Brook to succeed the Noyes Pond Camp. The November 1966 Long Trail News described the change:
An open-front frame shelter was then built south along a brook locally known as Jimmie Deane Brook, to replace Noyes Pond Shelter. It is, I believe, about ¾ of a mile south of the old Noyes Pond shelter and is on land belonging to Mr. Harvey Burch who has a beautiful home near Noyes Pond. He was very helpful to the trail gang.
Rolston’s Rest — named, sources suggest, for a trail maintainer or club volunteer — moved the Long Trail’s shelter footprint away from the pond entirely. The new site was on a creek rather than a mountain lake, but it offered clean land ownership and freedom from the private hunting-camp arrangements that had complicated shelter management at Noyes Pond for decades. The 18th edition guidebook errata confirmed: "Rolston Rest Shelter, a frame leanto with bunks for 6 to 8, was built by the Long Trail Patrol in 1966. Its location is about a mile south of old Noyes Pond Camp which will be dismantled."
The May 1968 Long Trail News confirmed the demolition: "The former Noyes Pond Camp has been removed." The November 1976 Long Trail News, in a retrospective on similar shelter removals, placed Noyes Pond’s departure in a broader pattern: "the Club was well aware, as a result of earlier experiences with Seth Warner Camp, Noyes Pond Camp, and Clarendon Lodge, that an attractive shelter on a clean site formerly occupied by a troublesome closed camp tends to remain clean, attractive, and considerately used."
Relationship to the Other Noyes Pond Shelters
Noyes Pond Camp (ID 169) occupied the central position in the Noyes Pond cluster — it was the most directly connected to the other three shelters, and the one whose fate most clearly drove the complex’s eventual closure.
Noyes Pond Lodge (ID 170, 1920–1951): ID 169 was built explicitly because ID 170 was inadequate. The GMC database description of ID 169 states that it was "a log cabin built near South Pond in 1925 to supplement the privately owned Noyes Pond Lodge" — the "supplementing" structure became the more important and longer-lived of the two. Once ID 169 was established as the GMC’s primary shore camp, the private lodge (ID 170) had no reason to be improved or maintained, and it slowly fell into ruin over the following two decades.
Noyes Pond Shelter (ID 171, 1923–1965): The slope shelter already existed when ID 169 was built, and the two GMC structures served the same location from different positions — ID 171 on the bluff, ID 169 at the water’s edge. The 1937 rebuild by the Proctor Section blurred the line between them further: when the old slope shelter (ID 171) needed replacement, the section used its materials and possibly its site for what the database records as a rebuild of ID 169. The shared end date of 1965 for both records may reflect the GMC’s recognition that they had effectively become a single structure.
Noyes Camp (ID 168, 1932–1968): ID 169 and ID 168 were neighbors and complements for more than three decades. The privately-owned frame camp (ID 168) was built in 1932 "to supplement the old camp" — meaning ID 169, as the GMC’s existing shore presence, was the "old camp" being supplemented. For most of the 1930s through 1960s, hikers at Noyes Pond could use either the GMC-managed camp or the privately-owned camp by agreement. When ID 169 was formally decommissioned in 1965 and Rolston’s Rest was built in 1966, ID 168 remained — it was the last active structure at the old Noyes Pond location, not removed until 1967–68.
Sources: Long Trail Guide Book, 9th–16th Editions (1932–1960); Long Trail News, December 1925; Long Trail News, March 1929; Long Trail News, April 1934; Long Trail News, July 1937; Long Trail News, November 1937; Long Trail News, November 1966; Long Trail News, May 1968; Long Trail News, November 1976; Walter Collins O’Kane, Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains (1926); Paul and Joanne Woodward, Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd ed. (Green Mountain Club, 1999).
