Porky Lodge — known also as the Stone Hut, Porcupine Lodge, Killington Camp, and Porky Camp — was a stone-built GMC shelter on the upper slopes of Killington Peak in central Vermont, constructed in 1926 by the Killington Section and opened to hikers in 1927. It was the only stone shelter on the Long Trail at the time of its construction, built deliberately for durability at an exposed mountain elevation where previous wooden and metal shelters had been wrecked by weather, vandals, and porcupines. The lodge had a fireplace, bunks for eight, and a caretaker in residence during the hiking season. It served hikers for over a decade, appeared in the accounts of hundreds of visitors per season, and was staffed in the summer of 1934 by a nineteen-year-old Churchill Scott, who would go on to become one of the Killington Section’s most dedicated long-term members. By 1939 it was superseded by the construction of Cooper Lodge nearby, and the stone walls gradually fell in on themselves over the following decades. By the mid-1970s it was a rubble-filled foundation, heavily overgrown, found only by those who knew where to look.
Setting: The Upper Slopes of Killington Peak
Killington Peak (4,235 feet) is Vermont’s second-highest mountain and for many decades was the spiritual and logistical center of the Killington Section’s trail territory. The upper mountain had hosted overnight visitors since at least the 1880s, when the Summit House — a hotel at the peak — served guests arriving via a carriage road from West Bridgewater. By the time the Long Trail was routed over Killington in the early twentieth century, the Summit House was in decline, though the carriage road and the spring that had served the hotel continued to shape where hikers camped and sheltered.
Porky Lodge stood on the upper slopes, about 200 yards above the site of a previous metal shelter known as the Tin Hut or Steel Shelter — a structure that had proved inadequate against the particular hazards of an exposed summit location. A 1915 photograph shows the Tin Hut standing near another earlier frame lean-to; by 1926, the metal structure, having been wrecked by exposure, vandals, and porcupines, was due for a more durable replacement. Porky Lodge was built on or very near the same general area, positioned in relation to the spring that served both the old hotel and subsequent shelters — a spring that would condition the siting of Cooper Lodge when it was built in 1939.
The Predecessor: The Tin Hut
Before Porky Lodge, the shelter on Killington’s upper slopes was a steel structure popularly known as the Tin Hut. Its date of construction is uncertain; a photograph from about 1915 shows it alongside an even earlier frame lean-to. By the mid-1920s it had been battered into uselessness. The 9th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1932) explained why the Killington Section chose stone for its replacement: "The stone construction was necessary because of its exposure to the fury of the elements and the destructive efforts of vandals and hedgehogs, which combined to wreck the metal hut." The Tin Hut was ultimately torn down about 1938; parts of it were subsequently used as forms in the construction of Cooper Lodge, giving the old metal shelter a small role in the infrastructure that replaced it.
Construction (1926) and Opening (1927)
The Killington Section built the Stone Hut in 1926. The December 1926 Long Trail News announced its completion, reporting that 500 people had already registered at the shelter, coming from 22 states — a remarkable figure for a structure that had only just opened. The August 1977 Long Trail News, drawing on the 1926 article, summarized: "This was constructed in 1926 by the Killington Section… The Stone Hut, which had a fireplace and bunks for eight, cost the Section nearly $500 and was then the only one of its kind on the Long Trail." The article added with evident pride the original editorial conclusion: "The Killington Section is a live one."
The shelter was recorded in the GMC database as having been built with the assistance of a family named Bucklin — local contributors to the project. The Bucklin name appears in Roma Pulling’s 1991 Smoke & Blazes survey of former Killington Section shelters: "In 1927 a family named Bucklin erected a stone shelter known to many as Porky Lodge."
A supplement to the 6th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (July 1927), which recorded the shelter’s first full season, noted: "A caretaker is usually kept here by the Killington Section and a small charge is made for accommodations. He also keeps a few simple supplies for sale." From its earliest season, then, Porky Lodge was a managed facility — not just a lean-to left for anyone to use, but a staffed shelter with modest provisions available. The new shelter stood "about 200 yards further up the mountain than the old one."
The Name and Its Variants
The shelter’s official names multiplied almost immediately. "Stone Hut" described the construction; "Killington Camp", its location, "Porky Lodge" and "Porcupine Lodge" referred to the porcupines that were the bane of wooden shelters everywhere on the Long Trail, and which had helped destroy the lodge’s metal predecessor. The October 1928 Long Trail News used "Porky Lodge" in a hiker account. The 1930s photographs in the GMC collection are captioned "Porcupine Camp on Killington Peak" and "Interior Killington Camp (Porcupine Lodge) 1935." The 1934 caretaker Churchill Scott referred to it as "Porky Camp." By whatever name, the shelter was consistently identified and recognized by its unusual stone construction.
Life at the Lodge: The 1920s and 1930s
The October 1928 Long Trail News published a hiker’s account of approaching Killington "in a torrential rain" and arriving at "the hearty welcome at Porky Lodge." The description captures the shelter at its liveliest: "Two Williams College students were keeping open house for trailers there, and half a dozen cheerful souls had taken refuge by the snapping fire. Tea was served us in a jiffy." The fireplace — unique among Long Trail shelters of the period — made the lodge a genuine refuge on a cold or wet mountain, and the register filled with names from far afield.
By the October 1929 Long Trail News, the lodge’s reputation was well established enough that a brief mention confirmed that 500 hikers had registered the previous season, from 22 states. The mix of day visitors, section hikers, and through-hikers made Killington one of the busiest points on the Long Trail, and the Stone Hut was the center of activity on the mountain.
A 1935 photograph in the GMC collection shows the interior — a modest but solid stone room with the fireplace and bunk arrangement the guidebook described. A 1936 outing schedule published in The Crumb, the newsletter of the Bread Loaf School of English, listed "Pico and Killington Peaks" as a July destination, with "Porky Lodge and Metal Hut" as the overnight lodgings. By the mid-1930s it was a recognized landmark on the Vermont mountain hiking circuit, familiar enough to appear on outing schedules without further explanation.
Paul Howard, who would later become the Killington Section’s Shelters Chairman, recalled staying at Porky Lodge "many times in the 30s." A photograph from the mid-1930s, published in the November 1975 Long Trail News, shows Howard and "three brawny friends posed for the camera in front of Killington’s Porky Lodge."
The Caretaker Era: Churchill Scott, 1934
The most detailed personal account of life inside Porky Lodge comes from W. Churchill Scott, who served as the shelter’s caretaker in the summer of 1934 at the age of nineteen. Churchill had grown up in Rutland and joined the Killington Section trail crews in 1932 or 1933, working under Willis Ross — a Rutland postal employee who was then the section’s most active trail builder. At the depth of the Great Depression, with no regular work to be found, Ross recruited the young Churchill for the caretaker position.
Herb Ogden, interviewing Scott in June 1999, recorded what Churchill remembered: "Churchill spent the summer of 1934 there. His parents would drive up to Sherburne Pass with provisions. Though the hike to Killington was shorter via the Bucklin Trail, Churchill preferred the scenic hike in from Sherburne Pass." The caretaker’s role at Porky Lodge was to maintain the shelter, welcome hikers, keep simple supplies for sale, and manage the register — a job that in a peak summer meant meeting dozens of visitors a week at an isolated stone hut near the summit of Vermont’s second-highest mountain.
Scott went on to decades of service to the GMC, becoming secretary of the Killington Section for twenty-two years, editing Smoke & Blazes, and maintaining trails and shelters through the years when sections were run largely by the sustained effort of a few committed individuals. In 2002 the Killington Section voted unanimously to recommend that the new Pico West Shelter be named the Churchill Scott Shelter in his honor, "feeling that his early connections to the GMC going back to the increasingly legendary 1930’s together with his many decades of continuing service to the Killington Section make him very deserving of having this new shelter named after him." His tenure at Porky Lodge — spent hauling supplies from the pass, keeping wood dry, and welcoming hikers out of the rain — was where that story began.
The Hurricane of 1938 and the End of Porky Lodge
The Great New England Hurricane of September 1938 struck Vermont with devastating force, blowing down thousands of acres of timber across the state. The section of the Long Trail between Pico and Killington was made impassable. Churchill Scott was part of the crew that cleared it afterward. The same storm season that required the trail clearance also brought the construction of Cooper Lodge to a halt — materials were being hauled up the Bucklin Trail when the hurricane struck; after it, the supply route shifted to the Juggernaut Trail from West Bridgewater.
Cooper Lodge was completed in 1939. With a new, purpose-built, enclosed GMC lodge near the summit, Porky Lodge’s active service life was over. The database records its end year as 1939. The Tin Hut was torn down in the same period, its metal parts repurposed as forms for Cooper Lodge’s construction. The stone hut stood empty, maintained by its own mass.
Sanborn Partridge, responding to a Long Trail News photograph challenge in August 1974, remembered seeing what he believed was Porky Lodge as late as 1941 or 1942: "up under the shadow of Killington… The view would be to the north or northeast; the height of land off to the right (east) would lead to Killington’s summit." He noted that the spring that had served both the old hotel and the lodge was not far behind the photographer, "and this spring surely conditioned the location of Porky Lodge and the hotel." He added, with the caution of a man trusting a forty-year-old memory: "I believe Porky Lodge was rebuilt soon after World War II but some of the Killington Section members will undoubtedly clear up this if I am correctly identifying the photo’s locale."
The rebuilding suggestion was not confirmed by other sources. Roma Pulling’s 1991 Smoke & Blazes account was straightforward: "The shelter fell down over a period of years."
Rediscovery (1975)
In the summer of 1975, Cooper Lodge caretaker Jeb Brugman found what he believed were the remains of Porky Lodge near the existing trail and alerted Paul Howard, who was visiting the mountain. Howard’s account, published in the November 1975 Long Trail News, described what they found:
"Later in the evening we traveled up the now existing trail to a point where it rapidly ascends to the summit. At this point, he led me north or to the left of the trail only 40 or 50 feet where what appeared to be a foundation and rubble of rocks stood, heavily grown-in all around and inside the walls that were left. No doubt it was the remains of that famous Porky Lodge."
Howard, who had stayed there many times in the 1930s, was able to identify the doorway location and explain the interior arrangement from memory. He and his son Paul and Jeb compared the rock formation to a photograph of the shelter and found no doubt. "Also, south of the remains and down the hill a bit were the remains of the old pot-bellied stove that served to comfort hikers on cold nights."
The stove’s survival as a recognizable artifact — rusted but locatable — added a physical thread back to the 1930s. What had been "Killington’s Porky Lodge," the shelter that welcomed hundreds of hikers per season and served as a young Churchill Scott’s base of operations in 1934, was now a rubble-filled foundation forty feet from the trail, identifiable only to those who had known it when it stood.
Sources
- "Long Trail News." , no. December (1926).
- Long Trail Guide Book (Supplement). 6th Edition ed. Green Mountain Club, 1927.
- Long Trail News 1928 (1928). Green Mountain Club. 2.
- "Long Trail News." , no. October (1929).
- The Crumb 1936 (1936). Bread Loaf School of English. 10.
- Long Trail News 1974 (1974). Green Mountain Club. 4.
- Long Trail News 1975 (1975). Green Mountain Club. 5.
- Long Trail News 1975 (1975). Green Mountain Club. 5.
- Long Trail News 1977 (1977). Green Mountain Club. 12.
- "Long Trail News." , no. August (1977).
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington) 44 (1991). Killington Section, Green Mountain Club. 6.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington) 55 (2002). Killington Section, Green Mountain Club. 11.
- Woodward, Paul & Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999. Pp. 58.
