Puffer Shelter stands on the Long Trail just north of Bolton Mountain in the town of Bolton, Vermont — the successor to Puffer Camp, a log cabin completed in 1954 that burned in November 1974. The shelter’s origin story is one of the more remarkable episodes in the Long Trail’s long record of volunteer labor: on a Saturday morning in June 1975, 125 people showed up at a Bolton Valley parking lot, shouldered pack frames loaded with pre-cut lumber and roofing material, and carried everything three miles over Bolton Mountain to the building site. The shelter was finished the following day. Over the fifty years since, Puffer Shelter has been maintained, enclosed, reroofed, and adopted by a succession of dedicated Burlington Section volunteers, and it remains an active overnight site on the northern Long Trail corridor. Like its predecessor, it carries the name of Professor Louis B. Puffer — GMC president, vice-president, section leader, cartographer, and guidebook editor — keeping his memory present on the trail he helped document. (GMC ID 000182)
Setting: Bolton Mountain and the Northern Long Trail
Puffer Shelter occupies the same general site as the original Puffer Camp, 4.1 miles north of Bolton Lodge on a rugged descent from the wooded summit of Bolton Mountain (3,725 feet). The shelter stands at roughly 3,200 feet elevation, just to the right of the trail as it descends north toward Mt. Mayo, the Mayo-Clark col, Mt. Clark, and on to Taylor Lodge. A small brook to the west provides water, though the 21st Long Trail Guide Book (1977) noted it is "an uncertain source of water in dry seasons." The position — roughly midway between Bolton Lodge to the south and Taylor Lodge to the north — makes Puffer Shelter an important waypoint on a section of trail that would otherwise stretch more than seven miles between overnight facilities. For the history of Puffer Camp and the man the shelter honors, see the companion document Puffer Camp: A History (GMC ID 000181).
From Fire to Blueprint: Planning the Rebuild (1974–1975)
Puffer Camp burned in November 1974. The Long Trail News of February 1975 recorded the loss and the Burlington Section’s response. The section organized the 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. The boards were pre-cut, coded by piece, and steel-banded into bundles in Burlington. Every plank, every roll of roofing material, every pound of nails and creosote would have to be carried by hand over three miles of trail — crossing over the summit of Bolton Mountain before descending to the site.
To solve the carry-in problem, the Rat Patrol placed an advertisement in the Burlington Free Press: "VOLUNTEER HIKERS NEEDED to help with rebuilding of Puffer Lodge on the Long Trail. Meet at 7:15 A.M. Saturday and/or Sunday at the Dairy Science Building (UVM) or 8 A.M. at parking lot at Bolton Valley ski area."
The Great Haul-In: June 14–15, 1975
On Saturday, June 14, 1975, 125 people showed up. The Ridgelines (Burlington Section, July 1975), under the headline "PUFFER LODGE HAUL IN — A BIG SUCCESS," and the August 1975 Long Trail News, under "MAJOR VOLUNTEER EFFORT PRODUCES NEW PUFFER SHELTER," reported the event in detail.
The materials to be carried were catalogued in the Long Trail News article: 407 boards — the largest sixteen feet long — along with 72 feet of chicken wire, four one-gallon cans of creosote, six rolls of roofing material each weighing 45 pounds, two rolls of tar paper at 30 pounds each, two quarts of roofing tar, 31 pounds of nails, and assorted tools. All of it went up on pack frames and rope. Hikers were encouraged to snack, rest briefly, and return to the trailhead to prevent congestion on the trail. The Long Trail News account described conditions: "Undeterred by flies, mud, humidity and the threat of thunderstorms, the GMC’ers, Boy Scouts and other volunteers carried all the materials and tools the three miles over Bolton Mt."
Boy Scout troops from across the Burlington area carried a substantial portion of the load. Troops 1 and 71 from Essex Center, Troop 2 from Burlington, Troop 7 from Jericho-Underhill, Troop 17 from Malletts Bay, Troops 25 and 30 from Essex Junction, and Troop 90 from Hinesburg all participated. David Broder of Troop 1, Essex Center, had organized the Scout contingent working with his troop leader and GMC member Fred Smith, as a way of fulfilling an Eagle Scout requirement. Kirk Bosworth and Bill Hella of the Essex Rescue Squad stood by on the mountain as a precaution.
Burlington Section President Gorky Magoon — who, by his own account, never made it to the construction site — set up a lemonade stand in the wilderness to revive returning hikers.
By two o’clock Sunday afternoon, the shelter was finished, including staining, landscaping, and a stone fireplace. The entire construction, from first board to last coat, took twenty-four hours.
Design and Enclosure
The shelter built in 1975 was, in its initial form, a three-sided open lean-to — a departure from the enclosed log cabin it replaced. The Ridgelines (Winter–Spring 2005–2006) noted plainly that "after the fire, over a hundred Burlington Section members put up a three-sided log structure, completing the entire construction in 24 hours. More hard work closed in the Shelter a few years later."
The 21st edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1977) described the completed structure as having "an open-front ‘porch’ [and] an enclosed bunkroom with space for twenty hikers" — a capacity of twenty, substantially larger than the six to eight of the original Puffer Camp — as well as a GMC caretaker in residence and a small fee for overnight use. Whether the enclosed bunkroom described in the 1977 guidebook reflected the shelter’s initial design or the enclosure that followed "a few years later" is not entirely clear from the record; the guidebook may have been written in anticipation of the planned enclosure or shortly after its completion. By 1983, the 22nd Long Trail Guide Book continued to describe the shelter as having "bunk space for 6 to 8" — a lower figure that suggests the capacity descriptions varied across editions.
Dedicated to Roy Buchanan’s Memory (1977)
By October 1977, the section organized two trail-clearing outings in the Puffer Shelter area — seventeen people cleared the Long Trail from Bolton Notch to Puffer Shelter; six others cleared the trail from the Taylor Lodge site to Puffer Shelter. The Ridgelines account of these outings noted that the shelter had been dedicated to the memory of Professor Roy O. Buchanan — the Long Trail Patrol’s founder, the man who had directed construction of the original Puffer Camp in 1954, and who had died in the interval since the new shelter was built. The dedication connected the new shelter to the older history of the site and to the man who had done more than anyone else to build and maintain the Burlington Section’s shelter infrastructure over the preceding decades.
Stewardship Through the Years
In February 1980, the Burlington Section and the Long Trail Patrol jointly installed a composting outhouse at Puffer Shelter — one of the first of its kind on the northern Long Trail.
The shelter was sustained through the 1980s and into the 1990s by a succession of volunteer adopters. The March 1986 Ridgelines carried the obituary of Basil Goodridge, describing him as "the adopter of Puffer shelter" and "the driving force behind our newest shelter, Buchanan shelter." By the late 1980s, the shelter was listed among sites needing adoption, and it cycled through new caretakers in subsequent years.
The late 1990s brought sanitation challenges. The September 1999 Ridgelines reported that "Puffer Shelter has a serious waste problem… Accumulated waste at the site needs to be trenched and buried," and announced plans to replace the shelter’s remote composting system with a moldering privy. The installation was among the Burlington Section’s stated projects for 1999, alongside a new roof on Duck Brook Shelter and repairs at Laura Woodward Shelter. By 2005, GMC Field Assistant Kate Darakjy led the effort to remove composter debris from Puffer Shelter, Butler Lodge, and Glen Ellen Lodge during the field season.
From at least 2002 through the 2010s, Jeff Bostwick served as Puffer Shelter’s dedicated adopter, visiting the site twice yearly, monitoring conditions, and organizing repair crews as needed. His long tenure was recognized repeatedly in the Burlington Section’s annual shelter reports.
In October 2004, the LTN reported short trail relocations were being cut near Puffer Shelter. In October 2007, a rescue party including GMC Education Coordinator Pete Antos-Ketcham responded to Puffer Shelter where three young women were suffering from hypothermia — their gear had been soaked on the hike in and they couldn’t stay warm. After changing into dry clothes provided by the rescue party, they were walked out to Bolton Ski Area.
The shelter’s view of Mount Mansfield — visible from the open front — became one of its most celebrated features. A sunrise photograph from Puffer Shelter by Jacob Ireland appeared in the Long Trail News Summer 2018. A view of Mansfield by Andrew McNealus appeared in the Winter 2020 issue.
Connections: The People the Shelter Brought Together
One personal account from the GMC archives catches the shelter’s place in people’s lives from an unexpected angle. The Ridgelines Winter 2003 issue, in a series of "how we met" stories from long-time Burlington Section couples, included Andy and Carlene:
"It all began in 1973 while Carlene was the Burlington Section membership chairman. She received several postcards from me asking about GMC membership and the rebuilding of Puffer Shelter. It wasn’t until June 28, 1975 that we met on an arctic alpine flower hike up the Sunset Ridge Trail. We became friends as we occasionally went on some of the same outings…"
They married later, spent two years in the Peace Corps in Guatemala, and returned to the GMC — their connection first made through the letters that circulated as the Burlington Section planned the shelter’s reconstruction.
The November 1975 Long Trail News, in a photo caption headed "PUFFER PROGRESS," named several volunteers: Andy Thoma, Toni Smith, and Dot Myer, shown clearing the snow-covered remains of the old Puffer Camp lodge; Carlene Whitcombe and Dot Pirkanen applying creosote to the new structure. The same volunteers whose correspondence had brought Andy and Carlene into each other’s orbits were now finishing the work that the haul-in had begun.
Major Renovation: The 2021–2022 Roof Project
By 2020, the Burlington Section Shelter Coordinator reported receiving word that Puffer Shelter was "in need of a fair amount of work," with an early 2021 outing planned to assess needs and make plans. The pandemic had disrupted the volunteer field season.
In 2021, Burlington Section volunteers and members of the UVM Outing Club undertook a full roof replacement, ferrying materials from Bryant Camp to the shelter site. The Long Trail News Winter 2021 reported on the effort, with a photograph captioned "Burlington Section volunteers and UVM Outing Club members ferried materials from Bryant Camp to Puffer Shelter for a full roof replacement."
In 2022, the Burlington Section installed a new roof while a GMC construction crew reset the shelter’s piers to eliminate leaning and added interior bracing for stabilization. The Long Trail News Winter 2023 described the project: "The Burlington Section installed a new roof on Puffer Shelter in 2022 while a GMC construction crew reset the piers to eliminate leaning." The 2023 photograph associated with the project in the GMC collection is captioned: "Puffer Shelter, first built in 1975. GMC Construction Crew reset the piers and added interior stabilization."
Maintenance continued through 2025. The Ridgelines Spring 2025 noted that among the Burlington Section’s recent accomplishments, "we replaced the roof on Puffer Shelter." On August 13, 2025, Pete Saile, Steve Titcomb, and Scott Albertson made a dedicated hike to haul wood shavings to the shelter and conduct a general maintenance check.
Sources
- "Fire and rebuild planning." Long Trail News, 1975. Green Mountain Club.
- "Puffer Lodge Haul In — A Big Success." Ridgelines, 1975. Burlington Section, GMC.
- "Puffer Progress." Long Trail News, 1975. (photo captions). Green Mountain Club.
- "Trail condition report and chain saw purchase note." Ridgelines, 1976. Burlington Section, GMC.
- Long Trail Guide Book. 21st ed. Green Mountain Club, 1977.
- "Trail-clearing outings; dedication to Roy Buchanan." Ridgelines, 1977. Burlington Section, GMC.
- "Composting outhouse installation at Puffer Shelter." Long Trail News, 1980. Green Mountain Club.
- Long Trail Guide Book. 22nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1983. Pp. 68.
- "Obituary of Basil Goodridge." Ridgelines, 1986. Burlington Section, GMC.
- "Shelter Committee projects planned." Ridgelines, 1999. Burlington Section, GMC. 7.
- "Shelter committee work season report." Ridgelines, 2002. Burlington Section, GMC. 2.
- "Andy & Carlene." Ridgelines, 2003. (memoir). Burlington Section, GMC. 1.
- "Trail projects report." Long Trail News, 2004. Green Mountain Club. 12.
- "field staff and seasonal report." Long Trail News, 2005. Green Mountain Club. 12.
- "Hypothermia rescue at Puffer Shelter." Long Trail News, 2007. Green Mountain Club. 17.
- "Shelters report." Ridgelines, 2008. Burlington Section, GMC. 4.
- "Shelters report." Ridgelines, 2009. Burlington Section, GMC. 4.
- "Shelters report." Ridgelines, 2011. Burlington Section, GMC. 3.
- "Shelters update." Ridgelines, 2012. Burlington Section, GMC. 4.
- "Shelters report." Ridgelines, 2013. Burlington Section, GMC. 3.
- "Puffer Shelter description for outing." Ridgelines, 2016. Burlington Section, GMC. 4.
- "2020 Shelters Report." Ridgelines, 2021. Burlington Section, GMC. 5.
- "Photo caption: roof replacement at Puffer Shelter; Scout Phillips." Long Trail News, 2021. Green Mountain Club. 21.
- "Taft Lodge caretaker diary (mentions hikers headed to Puffer Shelter)." Long Trail News, 2021. Green Mountain Club. 6.
- "Shelter renovation summary; Puffer Shelter pier and roof work." Long Trail News, 2023. Green Mountain Club. 9.
- "President’s report / annual meeting report." Ridgelines, 2025. Burlington Section, GMC. 2.
- "Trail clearing report; maintenance hike to Puffer Shelter, August 13." Ridgelines, 2025. Burlington Section, GMC. 2.
- Holmes, Marjorie. History of the Green Mountain Club, Burlington Section. Green Mountain Club. P. 13.
- Leo Leach, "A Salute to Volunteers." Ridgelines, 1999. / "The Year of the Privy." Burlington Section, GMC. 1.
- Photo:, "Sunrise from Puffer Shelter." Long Trail News, 2018. by Jacob Ireland. Green Mountain Club. 24.
- Photo:, "View of Mt. Mansfield from Puffer Shelter." Long Trail News, 2020. by Andrew McNealus. Green Mountain Club. 19.
- pp. 2, 5. Valerie Wilkins, "Highlights and History of the Long Trail: Jonesville to Smugglers Notch." Ridgelines, 2010. / shelter adopters list. Burlington Section, GMC.
- Sally S. Spear, "Major Volunteer Effort Produces New Puffer Shelter." Long Trail News, 1975. Green Mountain Club. 1.
- Winter––2006, "Long Trail Shelters and Lodges." Ridgelines, 2005. Burlington Section, GMC. 1.
- Woodward, Paul and Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999.
