The names on this shelter belong to professors who, for decated, dedicated themselves to doing the thankless tasks of Green Mountain Club: committee work, organizaing, and other non-glamorous work.
P. Conant Voter was a professor at Middlebury College, and as early as 1924 he appears in the Long Trail News as a GMC trustee and chairman of the Nomenclature Committee — the committee responsible for naming things. He later became the editor of the Long Trail Guide Book, a role he held for many years. By 1935 he was serving as GMC Vice President, and the guide books of the 1930s and 1940s list him reliably among the organization’s officers: vice president, guidebook editor, trustee. He was also one of the active leaders of the Lake Pleiad Section of the GMC — the local Middlebury-area chapter that maintained trails and shelters in exactly the terrain where Voter-White Lodge would eventually stand.
Raymond H. White was Voter’s colleague and fellow Middlebury professor. He earned his degree from Yale in 1905 and his master’s the following year, joined the Middlebury College faculty in 1909, and eventually became professor emeritus of classical languages and former dean of the faculty. Like Voter, he was a GMC trustee throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s — appearing in the same lists, serving on the same committees. At various points he served as GMC Vice President, as co-editor of the Guide Book alongside Voter, and as president of the Lake Pleiad Section. The 1951 Long Trail Guide Book still lists him as Section Treasurer.
White died on April 3, 1957. The Long Trail News of May 1957 noted: "Raymond H. White, former trustee of the Green Mountain Club, died April 3, 1957. He was professor emeritus of classical languages and former dean of the faculty at Middlebury College. The Voter-White Lodge on the Long Trail was named in his honor."
Voter, in turn, appears among the trustees attending GMC meetings through the 1940s — always present, always useful. Their names were already on the shelter when White died. The shelter was the tribute while they could still see it.
Battell’s Land and the Lake Pleiad Section
The setting for Voter-White Lodge was not just scenic — it was historically rich. Division VII of the Long Trail, from Brandon Gap north to Cooley Glen Shelter, runs mostly through lands bequeathed to Middlebury College in 1915 by Colonel Joseph Battell. Battell’s gift — a vast tract extending from White Rocks Mountain to Mt. Wilson — came with the Bread Loaf Inn west of Middlebury Gap (now the Bread Loaf School of English). The College still owned 700 acres at Lake Pleiad; the remainder had passed to the Green Mountain National Forest. Voter and White, as Middlebury professors, walked and worked in the shadow of Battell’s enduring generosity every time they came to this part of the trail.
The Lake Pleiad Section of the GMC — Voter’s and White’s local chapter — was responsible for maintaining the trail and shelters in this division for decades. It was a natural outgrowth of their academic community’s relationship with the land: Middlebury professors, students, and the Middlebury College Mountain Club (MMC) working alongside the GMC to keep Division VII in order.
Construction, 1952
Voter-White Lodge was built by the Middlebury Mountain Club in 1952 — the same year, per the GMC’s historical records, as Clarendon Lodge far to the south. It was a log cabin with bunks for ten to twelve, positioned at Pleiad Lookout on the ridge above Lake Pleiad, at Long Trail mile 123.2. The 1951 supplement to the Long Trail Guide Book announced it almost as a fait accompli: "The Middlebury College Mountain Club has recently constructed two closed camps adjacent to the Long Trail, and invites hikers to use them. Voter-White Lodge is at Lake Pleiad Lookout and Skyline Lodge is at Skylight Pond. Bunk space for about 10 at each. Water may be lacking during the summer at Voter-White."
The water caveat was important. A small brook crossed the Long Trail 0.2 miles south of the side trail junction leading to the lodge, but this brook was unreliable in dry summer months. Hikers needing dependable water had to descend 0.6 miles to Lake Pleiad — a workable arrangement, but one that required planning. The lodge sat off the main trail on a side trail 0.2 miles from the junction; the nearby Voter Ski Trail descended into the Middlebury College Snow Bowl.
The 1960 Long Trail Guide Book (16th edition) described the location in terms that made the water inconvenience feel beside the point: "Being at Pleiad Lookout, the cabin has one of the most scenic locations on the Long Trail. Lake Pleiad is down below, with Middlebury Gap just beyond, and farther north, the Green Mountain peaks north to Breadloaf Mt. A short distance from the Lodge, a ski trail leads to the top of a lift, part of the Middlebury College ski development, the Snow Bowl."
Favorite Camps and Fine Days
Voter-White Lodge was, by all accounts, genuinely loved. In November 1958, an end-to-ender’s account appeared in the Long Trail News singling out the lodge for special affection: "Voter-White Lodge and Skyline were our favorite camps and we appreciated the privilege of using them (and our thanks to Middlebury College Outing Club)… somehow they are romantic. Skyline seemed so isolated… we felt like ‘two stars alone in the heavens’ there… sipping tea, we watched the—"
The source breaks off there, but the sentiment survives: there was something at Voter-White and its companion shelter at Skylight Pond that hikers found lingering, worth returning to.
Local sections used the lodge regularly for hike destinations. A Burlington Section schedule printed in the Long Trail News of November 1960 included "Feb. 12 — Voter-White Lodge — ski and snowshoe hike." The Montpelier Section listed it as a destination in 1965: "A short hike in to Voter-White Lodge from Middlebury Gap. Approximately one mile." That same fall, the Burlington Section announced a "Brandon Gap to Middlebury Gap with chowder at Voter-White Lodge" — King Warburton leading, Jerry Dix cooking.
In 1962, a trail worker named Lloyd Billings of Middlebury — working in the area near Voter White — came across a hiker named James R. Hulton Sr. who had fallen and badly cut his face and hand. Billings drove him to the hospital in Middlebury and refused gas money. Hulton later wrote to the Long Trail News to publicly thank him, calling the act "beyond the call of duty."
The 1961 Trail Conference report confirmed the lodge’s solid standing: "Worth Mt., Voter-White and Skyline Lodges good; Sucker Brook and Boyce Shelters fair; Lake Pleiad Shelter is usable."
Decline and Fire
By 1966, things had changed. A Montpelier Section hike in November 1965 found the lodge sliding: "We climbed from Brandon Gap to Middlebury Gap," the section reporter wrote in the Long Trail News of February 1966. "We found Voter-White Lodge and nearby Worth Mountain Lodge both in poor condition."
No record of subsequent repairs has surfaced. The lodge continued to appear in the guides through the 19th edition (1968), still described in the same language — log cabin, bunks for 10 to 12, panoramic views, water at Lake Pleiad. In the fall 1969 issue of the Long Trail News, a hiker’s list of "Favorite Lodges" still included "Voter-White" alongside Greenwall, Pleiad, Boyce, Skyline, Battell, and Birch Glen.
But by then the lodge was already gone. Voter-White Lodge was destroyed by fire in 1969 — the sixteenth structure on the GMC’s historical list of shelters lost to fire, according to Woodward’s Long Trail System Shelter History (1999). The Long Trail News of February 1970 noted simply: "This Lodge has been destroyed by fire."
The 1971 Long Trail News carried a guide-book erratum: "Voter-White Lodge has been destroyed by fire. Worth Mountain Lodge and Pleiad Lookout are now reached by a spur trail. The Long Trail has been partially relocated between Worth Mountain Lodge and Lake Pleiad Shelter due to ski trail construction. Hikers should use caution in this area."
Worth Mountain Lodge survived the fire and eventually became the sole remaining shelter at Pleiad Lookout, reached by the spur trail that had once led also to Voter-White.
Sources
- Long Trail News 1935 (1935). Green Mountain Club. 1.
- Long Trail News 1940 (1940). Green Mountain Club. 3.
- Long Trail News 1957 (1957). Green Mountain Club. 1.
- Long Trail News 1958 (1958). Green Mountain Club. 5.
- Long Trail News 1959 (1959). Green Mountain Club. 2.
- Long Trail Guide Book 1960 (1960). Green Mountain Club. 40.
- Long Trail Guide Book 1960 (1960). Green Mountain Club. 3.
- Long Trail Guide Book 1960 (1960). Green Mountain Club. 71.
- Long Trail Guide Book 1960 (1960). Green Mountain Club. 70.
- Long Trail News 1960 (1960). Green Mountain Club. 5.
- Long Trail News 1960 (1960). Green Mountain Club. 4.
- Long Trail News 1961 (1961). Green Mountain Club. 4.
- Long Trail News 1961 (1961). Green Mountain Club. 5.
- Long Trail News 1962 (1962). Green Mountain Club. 3.
- Long Trail News 1965 (1965). Green Mountain Club. 6.
- Trail Talk (Montpelier) 1965 (1965). Montpelier Section, Green Mountain Club. 2.
- Long Trail News 1966 (1966). Green Mountain Club. 4.
- Long Trail Guide Book. Green Mountain Club, 1968.
- Long Trail News 1969 (1969). Green Mountain Club. 8.
- Long Trail News 1969 (1969). Green Mountain Club. 9.
- "Long Trail News." , no. February (1970).
- Long Trail News 1971 (1971). Green Mountain Club. 9.
- Long Trail News 1973 (1973). Green Mountain Club. 4.
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 17 ed. Green Mountain Club, 1963. Pp. 40.
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 18 ed. Green Mountain Club, 1966. Pp. 40.
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 19 ed. Green Mountain Club, 1968. Pp. 40.
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book. 19 ed. Green Mountain Club, 1968. Pp. 73.
- Woodward, Paul & Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999. Pp. 159.
- Woodward, Paul & Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999. Pp. 140.
- Woodward, Paul & Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999. Pp. 131.
