In the spring of 1959, a Middlebury Mountain Club member named Richard Krasker, then past president of the club, showed up at a GMC meeting with a scale model of a new cabin. The Long Trail News of May 1959 reported: "A model of a cabin built to scale was shown by Richard Krasker, past president of the Middlebury College Mountain Club. The Cabin is to have double walls, a big stove, and its 16′ x 24′ will accommodate thirty-six people. It is being built especially for winter use by the Mountain Club and is located about one hundred feet behind Voter White Lodge. It is expected to be completed by October."
Worth Mountain Lodge, as it came to be known, was indeed completed in 1959, and the 1960 guide noted its arrival curtly: "Worth Mountain Lodge has been built near Voter-White Lodge. Serving the Snow Bowl, it will be open to hikers during the hiking season, and will accommodate 30 campers." The two structures occupied the same ridge and were mentioned together in the guide from 1960 through the final edition that included Voter-White Lodge.
The construction of Worth Mountain Lodge created at least one memorable moment for a thru-hiker. In August 1959, an end-to-ender arrived at Lake Pleiad Shelter soaked from a downpour, and decided to push on up the mountain to Voter-White Lodge, wanting the comfort of a closed shelter. He found the side trail confusing in the growing dark — blazes hard to follow, multiple trails running through the area — and eventually spotted a sign reading "Voter-White Lodge X mi." but couldn’t find the right path. As he later wrote in the Long Trail News of February 1960: "It became too dark for further search and I certainly was not going to stumble back down the mountain to the Lake Pleiad Shelter, so I returned to a partially constructed building my search had uncovered. I entered, dropped my pack, and took off my clothes. I decided to bed down on top of a pile of lumber." He spent the night on the lumber pile under his poncho — unknowingly sheltering in Worth Mountain Lodge while it was still under construction.
Abuse and Decline
Unfortunately, the Middlebury Mountain Club’s hospitality was abused by vandals, and by 1966 Montpelier Section member, Marion Gorham, reported the lodge to be in poor condition. The Green Mountain Club attempted to attenuate the slow destruction by including Worth Mountain Lodge in its Adopt-A-Shelter Program. Finding volunteers proved difficult but in 1980 Herb Reed, Director of the program announced:
Brian Fitzgerald and his wife of Poultney, who recently returned from a stay in Alaska , are our latest adopters. They took on the mammoth job of adopting Worth Mountain Lodge. That has been bypassed this summer by hikers because of its sad and unsanitary condition. Hopefully arrangements can be made with the Middlebury Mountain Club, which owns the building, to upgrade it.
By 2011, continued vandalism, improper use, and an unstable foundation forced the club to decommission the lodge. It was replaced by Burgin Lodge, a locked cabin, closed to hikers.
Sources
- "Long Trail News." 1959.
- "Long Trail News." 1966.
- Long Trail Guide Book. 20th Edition ed. Green Mountain Club, 1971.
- "Long Trail News." 1980.
