Ritterbush Camp

Ritterbush Camp was a frame cabin built in 1933 that slept eight and was located in the northern Vermont highlands along the Long Trail. The shelter burned in 1999, ending nearly seven decades of service to hikers traversing Division XI of the trail.

The camp occupied a scenic location east of Devil’s Gulch, a fern-filled rocky notch that formed a dramatic approach to the shelter. The Camp was above Devil’s Gulch Brook and a little way back from Ritterbush Pond with a fine view from the camp. Water was reliably available from a brook 200 feet to the north along the Long Trail. The site became known well enough that it appeared in hiking guidebooks and attracted visitors with varying degrees of preparedness—a 1982 account captured two New York City hikers arriving after an exhausting nighttime scramble through the woods, their flashlight dead for much of the journey.

The shelter was maintained by the St. Albans Section and formed part of the Green Mountain Club’s broader system of mountain accommodations. It consisted of a frame structure with basic furnishings—a stove and bunks for sleeping—typical of the open-front camps built during the Long Trail’s development era. The shelter endured maintenance cycles common to mountain structures, with trail crews occasionally performing repairs and drainage improvements at the site.

In 1998, the GMC initiated plans to replace Ritterbush Camp at a new location.
Volunteers from the Laraway Section built the replacement shelter, which was dedicated on May 1, 1999, south of Devil’s Gulch. The new structure was christened Spruce Ledge Camp and featured sliding doors and bunk space for eight campers.

The original camp burned in March 1999, marking the end of the structure’s long service. This fire was intentional, a controlled burn consistent with the Green Mountain Club’s practice of removing deteriorated shelters by this method rather than allowing them to decay further or pose hazards. The removal of the burned structure was completed in June 1999, clearing the site for natural recovery while hikers moved on to the newly established shelter nearby.

Sources

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