Puffer Camp was a GMC log cabin on the Long Trail just north of Bolton Mountain in the town of Bolton, Vermont, completed in 1954 and dedicated to the memory of Professor Louis B. Puffer — cartographer, guidebook editor, section president, and GMC president at large. Built by volunteers under the direction of Professor Roy Buchanan and dedicated in the midst of a fierce electrical storm, it served as a comfortable mid-point shelter on the northern Long Trail corridor for twenty years. In November 1974 it burned. The following June, 125 volunteers showed up on a Saturday morning, carried precut lumber and supplies three miles over Bolton Mountain, and rebuilt the shelter in twenty-four hours. That replacement — Puffer Shelter — carries the name and the memory forward. The original Puffer Camp (GMC ID 000181) was the log cabin that burned; this is its history.
Who Was Louis B. Puffer
Professor Louis B. Puffer was one of the central figures of the Green Mountain Club through the middle decades of the twentieth century — not primarily as a trail builder or shelter carpenter, but as the man who gave the organization its visual form. A professor of civil engineering at the University of Vermont, Puffer served for many years as the Club’s cartographer and guidebook editor, drawing the maps that appeared in successive editions of the Long Trail Guide Book and shaping how generations of hikers understood and navigated the trail system. His maps were not merely functional documents but careful works of topographic draftsmanship that set a standard for clarity in a pre-GPS era when a shelter register entry and a Puffer map might be a hiker’s only orientation.
His service extended well beyond mapmaking. The 1937 Long Trail Guide Book lists him as GMC President — the Club’s highest office — as well as Cartographer. By 1947 he was serving as both Vice-President and Editor of the Guide Book. He also served as president of the Burlington Section for several years, as a Club trustee, and in numerous other capacities over the course of his association with the GMC. Donald Havens, the Club president who conducted the 1954 dedication ceremony at Puffer Camp, described Puffer as a man of "enthusiasm for hiking and mountain-climbing," and a constant hiking partner of Roy Buchanan himself — the two professors, one in civil engineering and one in mathematics, linked for decades in the institutional life of the Club.
The 1954 dedication was held posthumously: Puffer had died before the camp bearing his name was completed. His daughters, Mrs. Olive Faulkins and Miss Helen Puffer, attended the ceremony to represent the family.
Setting: Bolton Mountain and the Northern Long Trail
Puffer Camp stood 4.1 miles north of Bolton Lodge, on the descent from the wooded summit of Bolton Mountain (3,725 feet) — a position the Long Trail Guide Book described as "just to the right of the Trail" on a rugged stretch heading toward the Mayo-Clark col and on to Taylor Lodge. The site sat roughly midway between Bolton Lodge to the south and Taylor Lodge to the north, providing a critical mid-point shelter on a section of trail that otherwise stretched more than seven miles between overnight facilities.
The Bolton Mountain section of the Long Trail is demanding terrain — a steady climb from the Winooski River valley at Jonesville, through hardwood and softwood forest, to the wooded summit before descending into the complex terrain of the Mayo-Clark col, Mt. Clark, and Nebraska Notch. A small brook to the west of the trail furnished the camp’s water. The 20th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1971) described the completed log cabin as "this fine log cabin… named after Prof. Louis B. Puffer, long active in many capacities in the Green Mountain Club and at one time president," with bunk space for six to eight hikers.
Construction (1954)
Puffer Camp was built in 1954 by volunteer labor under the direction of Professor Roy O. Buchanan, assisted by his son Chester Buchanan of Schenectady — the same father-and-son team responsible for much of the Burlington Section’s shelter infrastructure in this period. Buchanan’s Long Trail Patrol had built Bolton Lodge, Taylor Lodge, and Butler Lodge for the section in earlier decades; Puffer Camp was one of the last significant structures completed under his direct supervision.
The November 1954 Long Trail News account described the new camp as a "new dedicated log lodge, nearly completed" at the time of the dedication — 4 miles north of Bolton Lodge over Bolton Mountain, at "about a half-way point between Bolton and Taylor Lodges." Marjorie Holmes, in her history of the Burlington Section, recorded that "Puffer Lodge was erected in 1954 by the Long Trail Patrol for the Burlington section and was at the time one of the best structures on the Long Trail."
The Dedication, September 19, 1954
The dedication ceremony was scheduled for a Sunday afternoon and evening at Bolton Lodge, with a party of more than twenty Burlington Section members gathered to pay tribute to the late professor. The event, as reported in the Long Trail News, had been organized with care — the ladies of the section prepared "a full course chicken dinner at Bolton," and a plaque was planned for the interior.
What no one planned for was the weather.
Early that Sunday morning, twelve men headed up over Bolton Mountain carrying lumber for the new door and floor. Shortly after they set out, a severe electrical storm struck. The trail turned slippery and rain came down hard, but the group pressed on over the steep and rugged trail — now running as a brook — to reach the camp, unpack their loads, eat lunch, and make the return journey over the mountain. Prof. Buchanan, who had been climbing Vermont mountains for decades, said he had never seen anything like it.
For the dedication party that followed later in the afternoon at Bolton Lodge, the speaker at the ceremony spoke of Puffer’s long service to the GMC. Elton Beal outlined plans for a memorial plaque to be placed inside. Mrs. Faulkins, speaking for the family, expressed appreciation for the Club’s remembrance of her father. A hiking friendship between the late professor and Roy Buchanan — who also spoke — gave the occasion a personal weight that the official tributes could only approximate.
The camp was named "Puffer Memorial Lodge" in early accounts, though it came to be known simply as Puffer Camp or Puffer Lodge in guidebook usage and in practice.
Twenty Years on the Trail (1954–1974)
Puffer Camp served hikers for two decades as one of the comfortable mid-points on the northern Long Trail corridor. The November 1962 Long Trail News noted that "a week was spent in ‘brushing’ the trail from Taylor Lodge to Puffer Camp. This difficult piece of trail maintenance had been needed for several years" — an indication of the demands that the rugged Bolton-Taylor corridor placed on the section’s maintenance volunteers.
A 1972 photograph in the GMC collection shows Linda Thoma at Puffer Lodge — the shelter in its last years, still standing and in use before the fire that would end its life. The camp appeared in successive editions of the Long Trail Guide Book as "this fine log cabin," consistent in its description: bunk space for six to eight, water from the small brook to the west, 4.1 miles north of Bolton Lodge.
In November 1974, Puffer Camp burned.
The Fire and the Rebuild (1974–1975)
The fire was the kind of loss that the Long Trail had absorbed dozens of times in its history — wood stoves, enclosed spaces, and winter hikers made for recurring danger. The Long Trail News of February 1975 recorded the event and the Burlington Section’s response.
The section organized a replacement project through its "Rat Patrol" — a standing committee for special trail and shelter projects, led by Ralph Gibbs and Jack Lance. Through the winter and spring of 1975, the Rat Patrol planned, secured materials, and pre-fabricated the lean-to components at the Burlington Generating Plant. All boards were pre-cut, coded, and steel-banded together in Burlington for the carry-in.
The replacement structure — a three-sided lean-to rather than an enclosed log cabin — was completed in that single weekend. The Ridgelines (Burlington Section, Winter 2005) account noted that "more hard work closed in the Shelter a few years later." The 1977 Long Trail Guide Book described the new Puffer Shelter as a structure with "an open-front ‘porch’ [and] an enclosed bunkroom with space for twenty hikers" — a substantially larger capacity than the original six to eight of Puffer Camp, and now with a GMC caretaker and a fee for overnight use.
Sources
- Long Trail Guide Book. 11th ed. Green Mountain Club, 1937. Pp. 70.
- Long Trail Guide Book. 13th ed. Green Mountain Club, 1947. Pp. 71.
- "New Shelter Dedicated in Storm to Memory of Prof. L. B. Puffer." Long Trail News, 1954. Green Mountain Club. 2.
- "Trail work report." Long Trail News, 1962. Green Mountain Club. 3.
- Long Trail Guide Book. 20th ed. Green Mountain Club, 1971. Pp. 59.
- "Fire and rebuild report." Long Trail News, 1975. Green Mountain Club.
- Long Trail Guide Book. 21st ed. Green Mountain Club, 1977. Pp. 68.
- Long Trail Guide Book. 23rd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1985. Pp. 70.
- "Long Trail Shelters and Lodges." Ridgelines, 2005. Burlington Section, GMC. 1.
- Green Mountain Club, 1968. . (. This fine log cabin was completed in 1954 by members of the Burlington Section. 19th ed. ), 1968. Pp. 55.
- Holmes, Marjorie. History of the Green Mountain Club, Burlington Section. Green Mountain Club. P. 13.
- Sally S. Spear, "Major Volunteer Effort Produces New Puffer Shelter." Long Trail News, 1975. Green Mountain Club. 1.
- Valerie Wilkins, "Highlights and History of the Long Trail: Jonesville to Smugglers Notch." Ridgelines, 2010. Burlington Section, GMC. 2.
- Woodward, Paul and Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999.
