Category: People

The Long Trail in Less Than a Week with an FKT Record Holder

Mikaela Osler, 2021 Fastest Known Time (FKT) record holder. Photos courtesy: Mikaela Osler

Inside the Mind of Mikaela Osler, FKT Record Holder
When I finally removed my socks, at the end of a 20-hour hiking day, my feet were a waxy grey-white. My skin was grotesquely wrinkled and loose at the heels. When I ran my thumb across my sole I felt a jolting, ticklish sensation I later learned meant I had nerve damage. It was 12:30 in the morning. I was at the Rolston Rest shelter in the middle of an attempt at an FKT, or Fastest Known Time, on the Long Trail, and I had trench foot. It’s easy to describe the proximate causes of the trench foot: by then, it had been raining for nearly 24 hours. I’d been hiking since 3 am the day before, when I awoke from a three-hour nap, packed by headlamp in the rain, and started walking. Obsessing over miles, I hadn’t allowed myself breaks to dry out. But as I sat in the shelter, fog swirling outside, I wasn’t thinking about proximate causes. I was thinking of quitting, and wondering why I was hiking in the middle of the night in the rain in the first place. Why was I trying to hike the Long Trail in six days? What on earth had possessed me to try for a speed record?
What are the FKT Basics?
FKTs are verified through GPS recordings and trip reports and are published on fastestknowntime.com, which grew out of a humble internet forum started in the early 2000s. There are three types of FKT: unsupported, self-supported, and supported. On an unsupported FKT, the athlete carries from start to finish all the food and supplies they’ll need for the attempt. Self-supported FKTs are similar to other thru-hikes: athletes may cache, mail, or buy supplies; and may accept trail magic or favors from strangers, but they don’t pre-arrange aid and they never get into vehicles, even to hitchhike. Supported athletes can have any help they can imagine, short of somebody carrying them down the trail. These guidelines are inflexible. Last year, Joe “Stringbean” McConnaughy completed the LT unsupported in under five days, breaking the previous record by over 24 hours. However, in a sleep-deprived, dehydrated delirium he accepted a sip of water when another hiker offered. So, his hike is recorded as self-supported. The sport has recently exploded in popularity; 2020 saw a 350% increase in FKT submissions on the site over 2019. The Long Trail is no exception. At least 12 attempts, including mine, have been made on the LT FKT in 2021. Although I haven’t found anybody who has a definitive count of attempts in previous years, most people I’ve asked have estimated it to be in the low single digits—three, four, maybe five.
Turning the LT into a race track?
“Can we please stop celebrating these things?” reads a comment under the GMC’s Instagram post about my Long Trail FKT. “It’s not in the spirit of the Long Trail to turn in (sic) into a race track or an ego filled competition. It sickens and saddens me.” In other words, not everybody is happy about the growing popularity of FKTs. I’ve gotten similar criticism before, and usually my reaction is righteous anger: hike your own hike, dude! But if I’m being honest, the criticism bothers me because it’s a little bit true. Publicly attempting to be one of the fastest people in the world absolutely involves ego. I’d love to say that I was on the trail purely for personal challenge, but as I sat at Rolston Rest Shelter considering my wrecked feet, I was thinking a lot about how other people perceived my hike. I had wanted to quit before, but didn’t have a good reason. Now, I could post the nasty photos and nobody would blame me for bailing. I could go home and rest with my vanity intact. But the next morning I awoke urgently needing to use the privy. I leapt from the shelter. I was halfway there before I realized I was able to walk. Oh no, I thought. I still had the option to quit without shame, but I couldn’t leave the trail knowing I hadn’t given it my full effort. Something other than ego was driving me, but I’m still puzzled by what. Luckily, I know a lot of people who’ve attempted Long Trail FKTs, and I reached out to them to help me work it out. Why do we do this? Is it really all about vanity? Ben Feinson, who recently broke the supported record, rephrased my question: “Is it possible to connect to the rhythms of nature and the flow of the trail while simultaneously struggling physically and pushing yourself to the limit?” The answer seems to be yes. Most people I talked to spontaneously told stories of transcendent experiences in nature. Ben remembers sobbing as he ran across Mount Mansfield. RJ Thompson, who made unsupported attempts in 2021 and 2011, talked about hiking the Monroe Skyline at sunset, the shadows playing tricks on his eyes. Joe McCounaghy recalled being on Camel’s Hump at midnight in 40-mile-per-hour winds. Nika Meyers, whose unsupported record I was attempting to break, remembers connecting to the tiniest details of the trail: “I think less about huge views and vistas than tiny trickles across the trail, these micro-landscapes…I feel so small on an FKT. I’m part of this big picture and I can relate to so many things. I can see the connection between this root and this rock.” FKT attempts also offer the opportunity to connect to your body and mind. It’s human nature to forget pain, and when I asked people about it they often struggled to articulate the appeal of such a physically intense experience. Instead, they spoke of the mental state their FKTs unlocked. An FKT requires immense focus and awareness. It can feel strangely freeing to subsume yourself to such an extreme goal. And sleep deprivation, hunger, and prolonged solitude can produce bizarre mental experiences. Jeremy Howard, who attempted the unsupported record this year, told me about an hours-long out-of-body that he describes as “the most tranquil and peaceful I’ve ever been in my entire life.” On the last night of my FKT, Nika texted me the story of a conversation she had with a newt on the last night of hers.
A Sacred Trail
Everyone I talked to felt a profound connection to the Long Trail. Many of us consider Vermont our home, or one of our homes. Nika worked for the GMC for years before her FKT and talked about how her hike allowed her to connect with people and places that had been “incredibly transformative” in her life, including some who had passed away. Joe, who got married in Vermont, did his FKT attempt shortly before moving from Boston to the West Coast in the middle of the pandemic. Many called the LT “perfect.” I know of a few people who’ve attempted Long Trail FKTs without setting foot on the trail in advance, and most failed. The athletes I talked to had spent countless days and weeks hiking, running, camping, and working on the LT, and see a speed attempt as one among many equally valid ways of experiencing the trail. Ben said, “Everyone is allowed to have the experience that is meaningful to them, in life, and especially on a trail as sacred as the Long Trail.” Like my fellow speed demons, my connections to the trail go much deeper than an FKT attempt. I grew up in Vermont. My first hikes in preschool and kindergarten were to Butler and Taylor Lodges. My home looks out on the Bolton Mountain ridgeline; the Long Trail traverses the horizon of my childhood world. I chose to attempt an FKT to challenge myself, and yes, I even chose to do it a little bit out of vanity, but mostly I wanted to deepen the connection I already felt to the Green Mountains. I wanted to access that ineffable mental state that comes with extreme exertion while immersed in a landscape that has always nurtured me. For me, the Long Trail could never just be a race track. The morning before I got trench foot, I reached an outcropping at a pause in the showers and looked out across the Green Mountains. Wisps of fog were rising from the valleys. The sky was a flat mass of clouds except for one perfect, tiny circle of sun. The glacier-carved ridges, the lush green forest, the schist under my feet worn smooth by generations of hikers: the view elicited something deep within me, a profound recognition and comfort. I was home. At Rolston Rest, sleep deprived and starving, my feet a mess, I thought of that view, of how special it was to be there when everybody else was still asleep. I thought of how much I had left to learn about my body and mind, how much the Long Trail still had to teach me. Like any other Long Trail user, I made the choice that was meaningful to me at the time. I kept hiking. Mikaela finished the LT in 6 days, 11 hours, and 33 minutes, setting a new women’s unsupported record. She is originally from Jericho, and now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she is working on a memoir.
This post was written by Mikaela Osler. It appeared in the Winter 2021 edition of the Long Trail News under the headline “The Long Trail in Less Than a Week: Inside the Mindset of a Fastest Known Time Record Holder.”

March 10, 2022
Section Hiking the Long Trail over Three Winters

Sue Johnston at the Long Trail’s Southern Terminus in winter. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston
Sue Johnston and her husband, Chris Scott, park at the Route 9 trailhead in Bennington. No hikers greet them, nor do they expect any to at 3 a.m. on a March morning. Chris says his goodbyes as Sue slips into socks, boots, and Microspikes. She heads northbound up the Long Trail carrying enough gear for an emergency overnight, two liters of water, snacks, a GPS tracker on her phone, a charger, a map and compass, and snowshoes. After all, a 22.6-mile hike awaits her if she is to complete the last section of her winter end-to-end hike along the Long Trail. Chris will meet her at the finish line. That day — March 8, 2021 — marks Sue’s 25^th nonconsecutive day and third season working toward the goal of completing all 272 miles in winter. It’s also her fourth attempt; in December 2013, she set off from Journey’s End Road but retreated due to deep snow and an indiscernible trail. In 2014, she made two more attempts with the same results. “I wasn’t accustomed to ‘failing’ that much,’” says Sue, already an accomplished hiker and mountaineer with nearly 30 years of winter hiking experience. “I could’ve bushwhacked, but I wanted to be on the LT proper as much as possible. It was a wake-up call to get my act together and get a GPS tracker.”
Long Trail’s northern terminus at Journey’s End. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston
So, in summer 2017, Sue tracked the length of the Long Trail herself via her fifth LT thru-hike. And on her 53^rd birthday — December 23, 2018 — she again started southbound from Journey’s End. “I finally made it from North Jay Pass to Jay Pass, convinced that maybe, just maybe, this was doable after all,” she wrote on her blog, RunSueRun. Now 55 and sensing the finish line, Sue climbs the dark, steep 1.6 miles to Melville Nauheim Shelter before switching into snowshoes. She eyes the handwarmers in her pack, which she carries to ease the pain of her Raynaud’s disease — a condition that causes your blood vessels to overreact and limit blood supply in your hands and feet when exposed to cold or stress. Deciding against it, she continues; she has 21 more miles to go before reaching Kelley Stand Road in Stratton. “It was the most intimidating day for sure because of the mileage, and it’s not very well traveled in winter,” recalls Sue.
* * * * * * * *
Sue first considered a winter Long Trail hike after reading about it in Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains. The book profiles Tom and Diane Sawyer, a couple who completed the section hike in the 1980s. Although impressed that the feat happened with ‘80s-era gear, Sue decided to take up the challenge with more modern technology. “The Whites’ popular peaks get super crowded, even in winter, which was my reason to do the Long Trail. I love the Long Trail, and in winter, you don’t have to deal with the mud, bugs, heat, and overcrowding,” she says.
Finding the LT’s white blazes in a snowy, winter landscape is no easy feat. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston
That doesn’t mean winter hiking comes without challenges; the biggest obstacle is finding the trail. With more than a foot of snow, there’s no discernible indentation where the trail should be, explains Sue. Snow camouflages the white blazes, and the cold and darkness are real dangers. “Your margin of error is so thin,” says Sue. “It’s really hard to follow the trail in a normal snow year. In a lighter snow year, it would be easier. The snow adds this huge extra challenge.” Having tracked the footpath over the summer boosts Sue’s confidence, although she’s also handy with a map and compass. “I don’t know how some people before me did it without GPS,” she wonders aloud. “I never 100 percent relied on my phone, but thankfully, it never let me down, so I never had to use my compass.” [The GPS tracker can work without regular cell service, which is unreliable on the LT. Cold weather can drain cell phone batteries more quickly as well.]
Left, bunny tracks; right, following animal tracks. Photos courtesy: Sue Johnston
The snow presented some fun surprises too, Sue admits. To prep for the steep, scrambly sections and ladders, Sue packed crampons, a rope, and an ice ax. “I was really nervous about the section going south off Mansfield,” she says. Upon arriving though, she found many of the ladders completely buried. “It made it much easier because I could just slide down. It wasn’t hard or scary at all. Going up [Mansfield’s] Chin is scarier than going down all those ladders,” she laughs.
Moose poop in the snow on Mt. Mayo. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston
Another perk? Animal tracks are clearer in the snow. “Between Lincoln Gap and Middlebury Gap, I saw animal tracks for almost every mammal in Vermont,” says Sue. “The animals like the trail and walk along it.” This benefited Sue, who says she followed a coyote for miles. When she became disoriented, she’d check the GPS and it matched with the canine’s prints. “I started trusting this coyote. He stuck to the trail!”
* * * * * * * *
Sue skis and is an avid summer hiker; winter hiking was a natural extension of that. She began winter hiking as a young adult in the early ‘90s, so she has plenty of experience to call upon. “Back then, it was harder to find people who winter hike, but I got snowshoes and fell in with a group of people who did it,” she explains. Breaking trail in the snow cover is difficult, which is why most of the LT — apart from icons like Mt. Abe, Mansfield, and Camel’s Hump — remains relatively untouched through winter, even today, she says. “It’s difficult to do it solo.”
Left, Long Trail signage; right, sunlit view between Middlebury and Brandon Gaps. Photos courtesy: Sue Johnston
Considering that, her attitude toward planning this trek is relatively nonchalant, apart from thru-hiking for GPS purposes. “I already had everything. This was just day hiking,” she says. And while Sue dislikes winter camping — which she credits to an expedition up Denali — she still prepared for emergency overnights. She carried a bivy and foam pad, along with her usual gear: a down jacket designed for mountaineering, insulated pants, a small stove and pot, “monster Black Diamond mittens,” and a thermos of Campbell’s tomato soup. She estimates her daypack weighed 20-25 pounds. She kept up her energy levels with “whatever looked good that day,” with little consideration for calories. “In the winter, you have to worry about things freezing. You don’t bring a banana because it will turn black, and you don’t bring something that’ll break your teeth when you bite into it,” she says. She consumed CLIF Nut Butter Bars, Snickers, Cabot cheese, bagels, and occasionally, salami. “I didn’t have to learn all this because I’ve been doing this for so long. It’s second nature to me,” Sue says. “I know how to read my body. I know how to manage moisture with layering. I know how to eat and drink. I know navigation,” she says.
* * * * * * * *
Past Maple Hill, Sue struggles to stay on the trail among the open hardwood forests, especially around Little Pond Mountain, Glastenbury Mountain, and Kid Gore Shelter. She compares it to a spruce forest where the trees grow denser, and the trail gap is more discernible. “But oh, what beautiful hardwoods,” she wrote in her blog.
Left, Stratton Mountain; right, bridge at north end of Lye Brook Wilderness. Photos courtesy: Sue Johnston
Sue checks her GPS often and sticks to the trail as adamantly as she can. At Glastenbury, she unfastens her snowshoes to climb the fire tower and take in the view. She spots snowmobile trails, which she’ll cross as she continues northbound. She’d followed the trail southbound for most of her hike, but for logistical reasons, she had switched the last few hikes around. From Glastenbury Mountain, she has 12.2 miles to go. That’s nothing compared to the 150 miles she had left at the start of the season. Between 2018 and 2020, Sue had hiked 120 miles of the LT. “The first winter, I was dabbling and wasn’t fully sure I could do it,” she says, adding that her mom was also battling Stage 4 cancer and passed away. “The second winter, I got to Lincoln Gap and thought, ‘I can do this. I got the hardest part done.’” By the third season, Sue was eager to finish. After passing Story Spring Shelter, Sue notices more foot traffic. She doesn’t mind hiking alongside others but says that being an introvert enhanced her trek. “I don’t mind being alone. I get completely lost in my thoughts and I’m so interested in my surroundings,” she says. “I wasn’t going to let the lack of a partner keep me from doing this. In the end, it was very satisfying to do it alone.”
Sue Johnston finishes the Long Trail at Kelley Stand Road. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston
When Sue reaches Kelley Stand Road around 4:20 p.m., she becomes the 11^th known winter end-to-ender. Chris waits for her at the trail head, and the two scramble into the car and head back to their Lyndon home. “Whenever I finish something like this, it’s bittersweet,” she says. “I’m happy I did it, but sad it’s over.”
* * * * * * * *

Sue’s husband, Christ Scott, stands near an iced fall on the south side of Laraway Mountain. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston
Overall, Sue hiked approximately 304 miles, which includes approach trails and unplowed roads; of the LT miles, 247 (more than 90 percent) were solo, she writes. It took 25 day hikes over three winters to complete. Looking forward, Sue has many more adventures planned. “I’m a peak bagger, so I’m always working on these obscure lists,” she says. This past summer, she finished Vermont’s 110, 3,000-footers. She and Chris are currently working on the Northeast Kingdom’s 100 highest peaks, which require a lot of bushwhacking, she explains. But she knows she can do it. “I remember when I first started hiking; if I lost the trail, I immediately freaked out,” she says, reflecting on her growth. “I’m not like that anymore.”
* * * * * * * *
This post was written by Angela Hilsman, GMC communications coordinator. It appeared in the Winter 2021 edition of the Long Trail News under the headline “Hiking End-to-End in Winter.”
Ice forms between Brandon Gap and Sherburne Pass. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston

Taft Lodge buried in winter snow, March 2019. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston

The sunrise highlights bear tracks on Hazen’s Notch Road, Dec. 2019. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston

View between Appalachian Gap and Lincoln Gap. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston

Winhall River Bridge covered in snow. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston

First light south of Lincoln Gap. Photo courtesy: Sue Johnston

January 13, 2022
Leverage: It’s Not About Size or Strength

This article was written by Rosalie Sharp, 2019 Long Trail Patrol Leader, and previously appeared in the Fall 2019 Long Trail News.

Family and friends typically struggle to understand what I mean when I say I lead trail crews. I’ve found the quickest way to create an image is to tell them something like “My crew and I find boulders in the woods, move them onto the trail, and set them in the ground to make structures that prevent erosion.”

That’s a simplification for sure, since we do more than stonework, but it fairly represents most Long Trail Patrol projects. Vermont trails are often steep, rocky, muddy, or some combination thereof. Stone structures are usually the best way to concentrate hiking traffic on a durable and well-drained surface. And ‘boulders’ is no understatement—the rocks we use are truly massive.

How can a crew of four move such big rocks? With the right tools! Generations of trail builders have moved boulders with hand tools since Long Trail construction began. The Long Trail Patrol continues to use rock bars and pick mattocks almost daily. While rigging systems help bring rocks to the trail, the rock bar and the pick are the most essential tools. We could do any of this season’s stone projects with just them and a sledgehammer. They’re simple, but powerful.

Of course, they must be wielded effectively. A bar rightly placed can flip rocks no human could budge with muscle alone. Physical strength is an asset, but it’s not the most important one. Using tools wisely, we can lift heavier loads, with less strain. That’s essential for anyone hoping to do trail work for more than a couple years, and to avoid back problems before 30.

A rock bar is simply a lever. Placing the beveled end under a rock and prying up or down gives a worker substantial mechanical advantage. The closer the rock to the fulcrum, and the farther away we grip the bar, the less force we need to move the rock.

As a worker starts rolling a big rock, they can lift only so far before the bar must be repositioned for another lift. This requires teamwork: another crew member places a bar to hold or move the rock further while the first person repositions. They take turns until the rock flips, then repeat the process. When the rock nears its final location, workers must plan their movements to place the rock properly in the hole they’ve dug, all of which requires foresight, precision, and a good sense of how that rock will behave.

Which brings me to the pick mattock, which is a combination lever and digging tool. The mattock end can dig a rock out of the soil, moss, and leaves where it starts, and also dig the hole in the trail where it will finish. The pick end is the lever. However, because the handle is perpendicular to the pick, using a pick instead of a bar requires forces in different directions. Workers usually use a bar to move rocks up and away, but a pick works best to move rocks up and toward a worker. Predicting the forces to apply to our tools enables us to move rocks through the woods efficiently, accurately, and safely.

Building skill and confidence with these tools can be incredibly rewarding. Last summer I approached three Green Mountain Club volunteers struggling to lift a rock the size of a tractor tire from a deep, boggy section of soil. Their rock bars kept slipping through the mud, deer flies buzzed above, it was at least 80 degrees, and they were understandably tired and frustrated. “We’re not strong enough to move this rock,” they declared.

But they were strong enough. What they needed was strategy. We set smaller rocks for fulcrums so our bars wouldn’t slide through the mud; we planned where to place our bars; and we focused on communicating clearly. Within 20 minutes we had that rock flipped out of the hole, and they were rolling it down to the trail with renewed energy and confidence.

Those three volunteers were women. Unfortunately, their belief in weakness is common among women new to trail work. Women trail workers often, though not always, have less upper body strength than many men, so they tend to feel less capable. That’s how I was at first, but I’ve been fortunate to work with extraordinary women who showed me that small size and limited strength need not be a disadvantage. I’ve never been very good at moving rocks by hand, but that pushed me to learn how to choose and use the right tools. I’m much stronger now than when I began rock work, and choose using tools over my hands most of the time. I’m a faster, safer, and healthier trail worker because of it.

Nearly every stone structure on the Long Trail was built with rock bars and pick mattocks, and many have lasted decades. The tools are timeless, simple, and essential to working on Vermont trails. Long Trail Patrol crews will be using them all over the Green Mountains this season. Come, find us, and see some rock moving in action!

February 20, 2020
Looking Back 50 Years: How the Caretaker Program Began

This article was written by Vic Henningsen and previously appeared in the Spring 2019 Long Trail News.

Ranger-Naturalists on Mansfield Summit. Photo by Lou Borie.

Green Mountain Club caretakers are a familiar sight to those visiting the busiest parts of the Long Trail, but few hikers know we owe their presence to the hard work of visionaries more than a half century ago.

In the mid-1960s University of Vermont botany professor Hubert “Hub” Vogelmann oversaw research on Camel’s Hump that would bring national attention to the degradation of fragile ridgelines and mountaintops. Vogelmann and his students focused on acid rain, ultimately influencing state and federal environmental policy, but they also noted damage to delicate ecological communities caused by rapidly increasing number of visitors. Similar studies in the Adirondacks and White Mountains confirmed that popular peaks were in danger of being “loved to death” by enthusiastic but uninformed visitors.

In the summer of 1968, some 20 Long Trail miles to the north, Burlington Section member and passionate environmentalist Ken Boyd volunteered part-time as caretaker at Bolton Lodge. Beginning in the 1920s the GMC had stationed caretakers at Stratton Pond, Killington, Camel’s Hump, and Mount Mansfield, maintaining shelters, supplying firewood, and providing blankets and occasional meals to weary hikers. The early club caretaker program lapsed in the quiet years after World War II.

Ranger painting blaze on summit. Photo by Lou Borie.

When Boyd arrived at Bolton, his aims were quite different. Like Vogelmann, he knew the Green Mountains were besieged by human activity that threatened to overwhelm what visitors sought to enjoy. While Vogelmann and his students collected data on rainfall, soil erosion, and plant damage, Boyd began to study backcountry users. He made a point of talking with everyone who passed through, kept meticulous usage records, and amassed data on trail and shelter conditions along much of the Long Trail. Hiker reports confirmed his suspicion that the trail system needed more thoughtful management.

Boyd developed a strategy of changing hiker behavior through low key, face to face education. Rather than harassing visitors about littering, he packed out the Bolton dump, explained the basic principles of what became the pack-it-in, pack-it-out philosophy, and enlisted hikers as partners to respect the trail, shelters, and mountain environment.

Visitors didn’t intend to damage the resource, he believed; damage came from lack of knowledge, not malice. So, he concluded, don’t treat them like criminals, and don’t make them feel like idiots. In a friendly conversational approach, he explained what he was doing and why, and why they might want to join in. If it worked, they might influence others. It might be slow, but it promised to be effective.

As the visitor tide rose in that decade, Vogelmann and Boyd pushed for action. Concerned also about Camel’s Hump’s even more heavily traveled northern neighbor, Mount Mansfield, Vogelmann pressed UVM (which owned most of Mansfield’s alpine area) and the Vermont Department of Forests and Parks, as it was then known, (which managed it) to mitigate the damage. Meanwhile, using statistics he had compiled at Bolton, Boyd lobbied the Burlington Section to reestablish shelter caretakers on Mount Mansfield.

In 1969, Vogelmann found an ally in Vermont State Parks Director Rodney Barber, a master diplomat and administrator. He brokered a complicated agreement by UVM, the Mount Mansfield Company, and the Department of Forests and Parks to support a ranger on the Mansfield ridge. The same year, Boyd’s data-driven campaign convinced the Burlington Section to station the first caretaker at Taft Lodge since 1946.

Starting in June 1969, state ranger-naturalists on the ridge and GMC caretakers at Taft did what they could to cope with hordes of visitors, whose numbers continued to increase because of a nationwide backpacking boom further swelled by widely disseminated articles in local and national news media publicizing the Long Trail and Mount Mansfield. It was slow and often deeply frustrating work.

But things were beginning to change. In October 1969, prominent activists and stakeholders organized the Green Mountain Profile Committee to marshal a coordinated, ecologically driven approach to resource preservation. Vogelmann chaired this group, but always credited its development and influence to GMC president Shirley Strong, whom he later described to historians Laura and Guy Waterman as “the driving force” in pulling the State of Vermont, the GMC, UVM, and others into effective partnership.

Ken Boyd and sons John and Jasen in Octogon

By 1971, this began to pay off. Now the GMC’s volunteer caretaker coordinator, Ken Boyd persuaded the club to expand coverage beyond Taft Lodge to Butler, Taylor, Bolton, Gorham, and Montclair Glen Lodges, and Stratton Pond. Perhaps most importantly, Rodney Barber appointed Ken Chief Ranger-Naturalist on Mount Mansfield. Ken and his wife, Alice, who acted as a full member of the ranger-caretaker team, moved into the Mount Mansfield Company’s Octagon building with their two young sons, John and the newborn Jasen.

Their arrival marked a crucial moment. The state ranger-naturalists and GMC caretakers could easily have descended into rivalry, but they united under the leadership of the Boyds. Alice’s managerial and logistical skills complemented Ken’s energy and drive as they showed enthusiastic young rangers and caretakers how to implement on a much larger scale the low key educational approach that Ken had developed at Bolton Lodge.

Alice and the boys

By Labor Day weekend 1971, the pattern that defines Vermont’s approach to backcountry management was set. The club caretaker system absorbed the state’s ranger-naturalist program in 1975. Since then, Long Trail hikers have continued to receive a consistent message from all backcountry personnel via friendly explanation and persuasion rather than enforcement.

This “Green Mountain model” was widely adopted elsewhere. Today Appalachian Trail thru-hikers and visitors to major summits in the White Mountains and the Adirondacks regularly encounter trail stewards whose approach mirrors that originated by GMC caretakers a half century ago.

Hub Vogelmann, Shirley Strong, and Rod Barber laid the groundwork for a united effort to preserve the fragile ecosystem of Vermont’s mountain ridgelines. But Ken and Alice Boyd and the rangers and caretakers they inspired and led invented and implemented the strategy that made that effort successful. Two generations later the ripple effect of the caretakers’ low key “each-one-teach-one” outreach to mountain visitors continues to spread.

Historian and Vermont Public Radio commentator Vic Henningsen was a caretaker and ranger-naturalist on Mount Mansfield during the 1970s. He would like to thank Alice and Ken Boyd, Howard Van Benthuysen, and Larry Van Meter for their help with this article.

May 30, 2019