The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1915-08-25
Meaning Oen Who Still CreditorIf Has
WOMAN ON THE TRAIL
Started from Bennington to Follow
Green Mountains

Green Mountains
Miss Rose Watson, the magazine
writer had an article in the Sunday
| New York Times on the Long Trail
following the line of the Green Mount
aims. The article is as follows:
"An altruistic project says the
members of the Green Mountain
club about the putting together of the
Long Trail You have 225 miles of
altruism ahead of you, if you start at
Bennington, VT, and when you get
through. at the village of Johnson,
and review three weeks of outdoors
in the woods. you will undoubtedly
feel that they really have given al
truism of n practical sort. Your
muscles are hardened, you have real,
iy seen things, and you have fresh
perspective upon the real values of
life.
The long Trail is not Central
Park ramble, as one might fear. The
Green Mountains still have most of
their pristine wildness about them
Roads cross them from east to west
only at rare intervals. and people on
one side of the range are pretty much
isolated from those on the other side
There are still some bears too, and
deer are a common site when il is
not hunting season. AS for poreu-
pine. they almost live with you You
have Ia cache your bacon carefully
when you camp for the night, Or you
won't have any for breakfast
The Green Mountain Club is com.
posed of men who have inherited or
acquired an acquaintance with woods
life and 'tramping. either through oc-
cupation or relaxation Most of them
are Vermonters and one may join by
paying dues of 81 year. The club
is divided into sections with centers
at different towns near the trail,
The trail is n route running north
and south along the range of the
Green Mountains. 1t consists of
series of logging roads and old trap
pcrs' and woodsmens trails, with
here and there pieces~of trail newly
made. mapped out by the Green Noun
tain Club so as to form continuous
foot route from the Massachusetts
line to the village of Johnson; that is
continuous with the exception of one
break of about twenty miles between
a point near Peru and Killington
Peak near Rutland. AT this point
one may descend to the mountain
highways and follow them toward
Killington Peak. 1t affords a pleas
ant variety OF rural country The
northern part of the trail was fin
shad in 1913: the southern part in
1914
Entering the trail from the south
We started at Bennington, a high
way leads from bennington to Hell
Hollow about five miles Here the
mountain highway ends, and you take
up the trail at the old schoolhouse.
1t enters the timber follows a rush
ing mountain torrent and disappears
among trees ana underbrush II is
your job to keep your eye peeled for
the red markers of the Green Noun
tain Club and to trail ahead, no mat
ter how little evidence there may be
of others having gone that way be-
fore YOU Here there may be
stream to ford over the rocks; here
Notwithstanding rotten log
across another stream; here the trail
follows the bed of a stream which Is
dried up in midsummer; and, here
you sink in above your ankles in
swamp
In one spot, it will seem that there
has never been any human lifebelore.
at another, you will come out upon a
clearing where once human life strug
gled with natural forces, but which
is now tragic with desoIation, the
forests having gradually reclaimed
their own through the years.
Camp Eleven" sounds mysterious,
1t is the first shelter out of Benning-
ton, seven miles in the woods. 1t
had been promised to us by our map.
1t is typical of the other camps which
you will find on the entire trail of at
an average, perhaps, twenty miles
apart II was once used as a lumber
camp Like the occasional clearings,
it bears silent evidence OF the human
life which has deserted it. Two large
buildings, roughly constructed out of
logs, have partly tumbled down, part
ly burned down. They evidently
were once used for the horses that
pulled the sledges loaded with logs
through miles of woods to the high
way, in the seasons of short days and
long nights The smaller building is
rough shack and one wonders how
the twenty or more men who prob
ably worked this job, ever found
room in such a small shelter.
a sleeping bunk runs along one
end, where the men slept together
side by side during the mountain win
ters, A rusty sheet iron cylinder
with stoye-pipe through the roof
was used as a stove. Rough wooden
benches are around the walls and
board table stands near the stove