It was a Saturday in May 1967 when the Worcester Section of the Green Mountain Club gathered for their annual spring work party, held faithfully each year on the weekend after Mother’s Day. As they had done so many times before, the volunteers dispersed along the Long Trail and its branches, chainsaws and hand tools in hand, ready to clear winter’s damage from the hiking paths they stewarded.
That particular spring, their assignment was the Stratton Pond area. The work was familiar—removing blowdowns, clearing brush, maintaining the trail corridor. As the crew progressed along the pond’s south shore toward the outlet, past Bigelow Shelter where the water ran clear and cool, something stopped them in their tracks. There, impossibly present where nothing had existed the previous season, stood a brand-new shelter.
The Worcester Section stood in amazement. A shelter materialized in the woods with no warning, no announcement. The initial mystery gave way to investigation, then revelation: the International Paper Company, which owned vast timberlands throughout Vermont including the forest surrounding Stratton Pond, had built it. The gesture was remarkable—a private corporation contributing to the Long Trail system, demonstrating the kind of landowner cooperation that sustained the trail’s expansion in the mid-twentieth century.
The volunteers christened it playfully: Surprise Shelter.
A Fitting Memorial
The sheltering structure would not carry that whimsical name for long. Within four months, the Worcester Section lost one of its most devoted members. John H. Vondell, a longtime presence at their work trips and outings, passed away in September 1967. Vondell had been an active member of the Worcester Section for many years, serving as both trustee and president of the GMC itself. Beyond his administrative work, he was known as a noted Vermont photographer—a man who had looked at these mountains and forests through both the lens of a camera and the lens of a devoted hiker.
The connection between Vondell and Stratton Pond ran deep. For years, he had come to these shores with other dedicated Worcester Section members—George Story and Louis Bigelow among them. Together they had cleared trails, built infrastructure, and built community. Just across the shoreline sat Bigelow Shelter, itself a testament to another trail builder and friend.
When the GMC approached the International Paper Company about renaming the new shelter in Vondell’s honor, the company agreed. By August 1968, less than a year after the shelter’s construction, it was officially designated the Vondell Shelter. The Worcester Section published their tribute in the Long Trail News:
Thus, as Louis Bigelow and John Vondell met side by side at Stratton Pond, now Bigelow Shelter and Vondell Shelter rest almost side by side at the pond which they loved so well.
A Shelter for the Trail
With its frame construction and capacity for eight people, the Vondell Shelter became a valuable resource for Long Trail hikers. Situated just 0.2 miles from the main trail at Willis Ross Clearing, it offered a dry place to sleep and shelter from sudden weather on one of Vermont’s most scenic alpine ponds. Hikers could collect water from nearby Bigelow Spring, named for yet another trail pioneer, and continue their journeys with renewed strength.
For more than three decades, the Vondell Shelter served the hiking community. It weathered storms, hosted countless overnight visitors, and quietly perpetuated John Vondell’s memory among the hikers who passed through Stratton Pond. Every person who slept beneath its roof was, unknowingly perhaps, connected to a man who had devoted his life to these trails and to the volunteer tradition that built and maintained them.
The End of an Era
By the 1990s, the Long Trail system had evolved. A newer Stratton Pond Shelter was planned, one that would better serve the increased traffic to the popular alpine pond. In 1999, after more than thirty years of faithful service, the Vondell Shelter was removed from the shoreline it had occupied since 1967.
The shelter’s removal marked the end of a particular chapter in the Long Trail’s history—a chapter written in the collaborative spirit of the mid-twentieth century, when a paper company and volunteer hiking clubs worked together to create infrastructure for people who loved the mountains. And while the physical shelter has vanished, the story it embodied remains: that of a dedicated man, a community of volunteers, and the enduring legacy of stewardship that connects each generation of hikers to those who came before.
Sources
- "Long Trail News." 1967.
- "Long Trail News." 1968.
- Long Trail Guide Book. 24th Edition ed. Green Mountain Club, 1996.
- Long Trail News, 1999.
