One of my favorite sections of the Long Trail to hike, however, are through ski areas and today, the trail headed through the Middlebury ski area. I like ski areas because most of the trail is deep in the trees—the same Long Green Tunnel you hear about on the Appalachian Trail—but in ski areas, you get lots of views whenever the trail crosses a ski run. So I enjoyed the tromp through the Middlebury ski area and down to Middlebury Gap.
On the other side of the gap, the trail climbs some steep cliffs and a 0.4-mile side trail leads to a viewpoint over Silent Cliffs. For the most part, I’ve been taking every side trail to every viewpoint I could to take photos for http://www.walking4fun.com, but most of the time, the viewpoints are a few dozen feet off the trail. Some of them might be 0.1 or 0.2 miles off trail, which I’d reluctantly follow for the photo.
This viewpoint, however, was a shopping 0.4 miles off the trail, or 0.8 miles for the round-trip trek, and I was sorely tempted to pass it off. On the other hand, I had gotten an early start to my day’s hike was barely going to cover 12 miles for the day. I had time for a near-mile, off-trail trek. It looked relatively flat on my topo map as well. Oh, what the heck! I went for it!
Halfway to the Silent Cliffs, I was startled by a large crashing sound through the forest about a hundred feet ahead of me. What the hell is that?! I thought. I stopped, searching for the source of the sound, when I caught a brief glimpse of a large beast between the trees.
Good God! I thought. That’s the biggest bear I’ve ever seen!
The beast was still crashing through the forest, making a racquet. I wasn’t especially worried about my safety—it was clearly running away from me, downhill to the left—when I caught another brief glimpse of the beast between the trees and noticed it had antlers.
The bear has antlers! I thought. I’ve never seen a bear with antlers before!
Even before I finished the thought, I realized that bears didn’t have antlers. It’s a MOOSE!!!!
Yes, a moose. That makes a lot more sense. Moose are big creatures—much bigger than bears. I had seen two moose while hiking the Appalachian Trail, one of them even in Vermont, but when I see a big creature with dark fur, my knee-jerk reaction is that it must be a bear.
I continued hearing the moose run down the hill and into and across a meadow far in the distance. I only got a glimpse of it for another second or so before it reentered the woods on the far side of a meadow and it disappeared from view for good. I walked a bit off trail to the meadow hoping to see it again, but it was gone. I couldn’t even hear it crashing through the forest anymore. It might have stopped and was watching me, hidden in the shadows of the trees.
I was disappointed not to get any photos of the majestic beast—it had seen me before I saw it which pretty much guaranteed no photos. Not in the brief glimpses I was able to get. But I was still excited. I saw a moose!!!!
I saw a moose! If that doesn’t put a thrill into you, nothing will. =)
I continued on to the Silent Cliffs, not even really caring about the views at all anymore, although they were nice overlooking Middlebury Gap.
The rest of the day was largely uneventful. I saw a few day hikers near the ski area but I never saw any backpackers the whole day—northbound or southbound. One important milestone was reached: I had passed the halfway mark of the trail. But it’s precise location wasn’t marked or acknowledged in any way either.
I spent the night at the Emily Proctor Shelter, which had me scratching me head. I couldn’t be 100% certain, but I thought that was the name of the actress that played the sexy blonde in CSI: Miami. How the heck did she get a trail and a shelter named after her?! Did she have any connections to Vermont? Since I didn’t have a smartphone or any other access to Internet archives, my puzzlement would not be satisfied. However, my guidebook did say that the shelter was originally built in 1960. I didn’t know how old that actress was, but I’m pretty sure she couldn’t have possibly had anything named after her in 1960. Who was Emily Proctor?
The shelter register provided a new clue, though: Someone had written that we had her to thank for a woman’s right to vote. Ahh… That kind of makes sense, I suppose. Not Emily Proctor, the actress, but Emily Proctor, part of the woman’s suffrage movement.
Now that I’m off the trail and online typing up these entries, I can run a few Internet searches and learned a few things. The actress is named Emily Procter, not Emily Proctor. (An E rather than an O.) And whenever I try to run an Internet search for Emily Proctor (with the O), it keeps wanting to correct me to an E. No, I tell it! I only want Emily ProcTOR! Then my search results are filled up with a bunch of Emily ProcTER photos where her name had been misspelled.
It appears, it would seem, that Emily ProcTOR has no existence on the Internet.
In unrelated news, nobody else showed up at the shelter, so I had it all to myself. =)
This might be the first time I’ve ever seen a cairn built
on top of a shelf mushroom!
This remarkably good reflection of me was taken
in one of the windows of the shack by a ski lift.
It shows me with my new “buff look.” =)
Don’t enter the woods after 3:00?! Are you crazy?!
How would I ever finish the trail with a stupid rule like that?!
Lake Pleiad
Love the ski areas for the wide open views—which you
don’t get a lot of on much of the trail!
Middlebury Gap
View of the Middlebury ski area from Silent Cliff—not long
after I saw a moose!
Skylight Pond
One of the few natural lookouts from the trail.
The Emily Proctor Shelter
13 comments:
You got to meet Charlie? Cool! Me and Charlie, we go waaaay back.
You have to do a google search with a minus for what you don't want.
I finally did "historical emily proctor -procter" and found something on a Vermont historical site:
"Emily Proctor helped purchase library books in foreign languages for immigrants who worked at the Vermont Marble Company."
So that's something.
KuKu
Emily Proctor was part of the family that owned Vermont Marble Company and she established a yearly Proctor Prize for the most improved school in each county in Vermont. Her sister-in-law,Mary Proctor, was the wife of governor Redfield Proctor. This info is from a Green Mountain AAUW newsletter
There is also an Emily Proctor Trail in Vermont
Well, i was going to tell you Emily was the Governor's wife, a long time ago, and the Proctor family is the same one the town of Proctor is named for. Kind of a big deal family in the state -first of the Vermont millionaire types, of the time. Right up there with the Chittendons and Allens ('cept the Allens did not get rich). They made their money from red marble, of which a number of Important Buildings in DC are made. . .
actually, i misspoke: the Important Buildings aren't made of the red marble; they're just faced with it. Anyway, this is the stuff you get to learn if you have kids who have to take VT state history in 4th grade.
You may have seen the extremely rare bear-moose hybrid.
More northerly one can also see chip-moose and jack-alope.
Catamount tracks are rare, but can be seen occasionally crossing the trail.
I just love the fact that everyone who's commenting can't even seem to agree on who Emily Proctor is. =) It was a lot more difficult of a question to answer than I expected!
Hey there....does the Emily proctor shelter have a water source near it and a place to build a fire?
It was a long time ago--I don't remember details like that anymore. It probably has a water source nearby, but only because almost all shelters do. There's probably a better than average chance of a place to build a fire since most shelters have a fire pit, but I honestly don't remember one way or another.
My wife and I hiked by the Emily Proctor Shelter on 8/25/17 and I had the same question - who was Emily Proctor? I found this post while researching that question. It took some digging to find the answer. Yes, as other commenters have noted, the Proctor family was prominent in Vermont history. But there were several Emily Proctors in that family. I did find the answer, with the help of the Green Mountain Club. Short answer: it was Emily Dutton Proctor (1869-1948), the philanthropist daughter of Redfield Proctor, founder of the Vermont Marble Company, governor of Vermont, and U.S. Senator from Vermont.
Long answer here:
https://bremlang.blogspot.com/2017/09/who-was-emily-proctor.html
Several members of the Proctor family had a lot to do with the early years of the Long Trail and the Green Mountain Club.
Hi All -
I know quite a bit about Emily Proctor. She built the beautiful house that I am privileged to live in. I live in Berkeley, California, and my house was built by Emily and her then husband, Thomas Tefler, in 1929. Her grandfather, father, uncle and brother were all governors of the state of Vermont. I'm delighted to learn in this 100th anniversary of the women's right to vote, that Emily was a suffragette. Here is an excerpt of what was printed by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Foundation based on wonderful research done by Daniella Thompson. (I've edited this to take out the description of my home and just leave the information about Emily.)
The client in this case was an heiress. Emily Proctor Telfer (1887–1964) was born in Proctor, Vermont. Her family owned the Vermont Marble Company and the town of Proctor. Her grandfather, Redfield Proctor, served as Governor of Vermont, U.S. Secretary of War under President Harrison, and U.S. Senator. Her father, uncle, and brother later took their turns as Vermont’s governors.
In 1915, Emily married George Harry Eggleston (1889–1959), a manager at the marble company. We still don’t know when and why the two divorced, or when Emily decided to live in California. She had visited the West Coast in earlier years, staying in tony winter resorts such as the Potter Hotel in Santa Barbara or the Mission Inn, in Riverside. Without any prior hint of an engagement, the Oakland Tribune announced in early 1926 that Mrs. Emily Proctor Eggleston had married Thomas Telfer on February 6 at “Springside” in Concord. The groom was 14 years younger than his bride and rather good looking, especially in his golf togs. Golf may have brought the couple together, as they were both scratch players. Emily’s money, no doubt, helped seal the match.
Thomas Telfer (1901–1971) was born in Boonton, NJ to a Scottish family of brickmasons. His father was a successful contractor, but Thomas had other ambitions. He studied civil engineering at Cornell University, graduating with the class of 1923. Eventually he took a job as a sales engineer with Mysell, Moller & Co., a San Francisco brokerage firm that specialized in public utility bonds. The 1925 Berkeley directory listed Telfer as residing at the Northgate Hotel, 1809 Euclid Avenue. Following the wedding, the couple lived briefly in an apartment at 1862 Arch Street but quickly upgraded to a new Dutch Colonial house at 3020 Garber, whose owner, Suzette B. Weber, had moved to the Claremont Hotel after one year in residence.
Thomas Telfer soon left his bond-selling job. The Cornell Civil Engineer announced, “Thomas Telfer is engaged in Walnut Ranching in Ignacio Valley, Calif.” The 1920s ushered much planting of walnut and almond orchards in the valley, and Thomas was now listing himself as a Concord walnut rancher.
In 1932, the Telfers sold the house and embarked on a long East Coast vacation, settling in at the Claremont Country Club upon their return. Before leaving on the trip, they commissioned architect Henry H. Gutterson to design for them a new house in the same neighborhood, where they lived until their marriage foundered. In 1939, the now divorced Emily Telfer built herself a modern house, designed by Frederick Confer, on the same block as the first home she built. She remarried her first husband and lived on Belrose Avenue for the rest of her life. When she died, her obituary in the Oakland Tribune informed readers that “During World War II, she was known as ‘Ma’ Eggleston to the soldiers passing through Camp Knight in Oakland going to and from the Pacific. Mrs. Eggleston staged plays, did canteen work and performed many other volunteer services for the troops. After the war, she gave much of her time to aiding injured Naval personnel and helping to run a volunteer program for the Alta Bates Community Hospital in Berkeley.”
Susan Blew, Berkeley, CA 10/14/20
Susan Blew - this is great information! Thanks for posting this. I am glad to learn all this, and I hope you enjoy your house.
As noted in the comment above yours, I stumbled across this interesting blog post in 2017 when I was also researching this question. I found three Emily Proctors in three generations of the family:
1st generation: Emily Proctor (1835-1915) - call her Emily#1 - was the wife of Redfield Proctor.
2nd generation: Emily Proctor (1869-1948) - call her Emily#2 - was a daughter of Redfield and Emily Proctor. (They had three daughters and two sons.)
3rd generation: Emily Proctor (1887-1964) - call her Emily#3 - was a granddaughter of Redfield and Emily Proctor. Your home was built by this Emily Proctor.
The five children of Redfield and Emily#1 were: Arabella, Fletcher, Fanny, Redfield Jr., and Emily#2. Emily#3 was a daughter of Fletcher and Minnie Proctor.
I found a source, which of course could be mistaken, that said the shelter on the Long Trail was named for Emily#2, who was the aunt of the woman who built your house. My research is documented in this blog post:
https://bremlang.blogspot.com/2017/09/who-was-emily-proctor.html
If you would like to email me at gsputnam@gmail.com, I would be happy to correspond further.
George Putnam, Jeffersonville, Vermont
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