Long Trail Photographs

The Long Trail Collection includes over 900 images of the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the United States: Vermont’s Long Trail. The collection is mainly comprised of black-and-white and hand-colored lantern slides derived from photographs taken between 1912 and 1937. It documents the Green Mountain Club’s building of original trails and shelters and illustrates the enthusiasm for the Long Trail project (and hiking in general) at the turn of the century. These images chronicle the views and landscapes seen by early hikers of the Long Trail and provide an historical record of people associated with the Green Mountain Club’s formative years. The images in this collection were captured by Green Mountain Club members Theron S. Dean and Herbert Wheaton Congdon, both of whom were early contributors to the trail’s development. Congdon surveyed and mapped a large portion of the early trail including a fifty mile stretch from Middlebury Gap to Bolton. Congdon, along with Leroy Little and Clarence Cowles, is also credited with the first winter ascent of Mount Mansfield on February 21, 1920. Dean is perhaps the most prolific documenter of the Long Trail’s development. Dean traveled throughout Vermont presenting slideshows and giving talks about the Long Trail, often to hundreds of people. A number of the original lantern slides in this collection were used by Congdon and Dean in their Long Trail presentations. Dean in particular meticulously cultivated his lantern slide collection and displayed these slides during his many talks. The original slides can be viewed in the Dean and Congdon collections at the University of Vermont Silver Special Collections Library. More information about the Long Trail can be obtained from the Green Mountain Club. The slides were scanned by the University's Landscape Change Program with the generous support of the National Science Foundation. The digitized photographs also appear in the Landscape Change image database at: http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/

Showing 161 - 170 of 833 Records

Women writing while on the trail
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    • Date Created: 1926?
    • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


    Mountain peak through the trees
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      • Date Created: 1926
      • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


      Sunset from Dunsmoor Lodge
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        • Date Created: 1920-08-24 00:00:00
        • Description: The man in the image may be Herbert Wheaton Congdon. Slide recolored by Mrs. Perry November 16, 1924.
        • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


        20 below zero on Killington trail
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          • Description: Both the attribution of the photo to Brehmer and the coloring to Beselers was followed by a question mark in the original title.
          • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


          Leverett Smith at the lower end of the new forehead trail on Mount Mansfield
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            • Date Created: 1920-08-19 00:00:00
            • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


            Mount Mansfield nose from the meadow west of the Taft Lodge
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              • Date Created: 1920-02
              • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


              Taft Trail to Mount Mansfield below Lookout Bluff
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                • Date Created: 1920-02-21 00:00:00
                • Description: The person in this photograph is identified as L.L. Little.
                • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


                Summit House Hotel on Mount Mansfield
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                  • Date Created: 1926
                  • Description: This building is also referred to as the "Vermont Hotel."
                  • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


                  Montclair Glen Shelter - 7.9 miles from Birch Glen
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                    • Date Created: 1935-08-05 00:00:00
                    • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs


                    Sterling Range from the trail to Mount Mansfield's Adams apple
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                      • Date Created: 1920-02-21 00:00:00
                      • Parent Collections: Long Trail Photographs