Lean-to love: Volunteers restore quintessential Adirondack shelters
By Brandon Loomis
The work chant echoed from the hillside and across Lake Colden as a line of men leaned on a rope strung through a treetop pulley.
“Oy! … Oy! … Oy! … Oy!”
It was the sound of an enthusiastic band of volunteers—outdoorspeople who joke that they toil weekends in the woods because they’re “dumber’n a bag of hammers”—pulling the iconic Adirondack lean-to into the future.
That’s something that the crew from Lean2Rescue does both literally (pulling the Beaver Point Lean-to log-by-log to restore it in a state-approved new location away from the water) and figuratively (salvaging historic structures that would otherwise rot and return to the forest).
It’s a grueling job that some of them say they would never do for pay, but would go out of their way to do for love. It’s also not without controversy, as people with long traditions of staying in particular lean-tos get upset when a crew moves it on the order of state environmental officials.
Along with the Adirondack 46ers and the state, these volunteers this spring surpassed 100 “rescues,” or restorations of the structures that have been identified with Adirondack adventures for at least a century. Private campers or clubs built many on state land before there were rules against it, which made them state property. With 234 sprinkled across the park, volunteers figure to have more than 100 more jobs to go, averaging a little more than a handful a year.
“It’s about heritage: Adirondack heritage. Why waste a lean-to that could be refurbished?”
— Tom Hart, Lean2Rescue volunteer
Changing places
It’s also about harmony, as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation attempts to preserve a century-old tradition of log-sided camping structures while reducing developed spaces along waterways and trails. It was for that reason that the workers had to dismantle the lean-to and hoist it into the woods uphill from its shoreline perch on Colden before giving it a new roof and decades more to stand.
“We’re trying to get people not to camp right on the shoreline,” said Kris Alberga, regional supervisor of natural resources for DEC. Keeping a lean-to on the waterfront encourages people to congregate there and create more paths that can affect both the shoreline vegetation and the area’s natural appearance when viewed from across the water, he said.
The Beaver Point job, in May, was the second removal from Colden’s southwest side. The other relocated structure is now in the woods east of the lake.
The state amended the park’s land plan in the 1970s to require at least a 100-foot setback, but Alberga said there’s not a sufficient budget to schedule moving those that remain on shorelines. Instead, the department waits until a lean-to needs major restoration—a whole new roof, say, instead of just reshingling—and calls in for help moving and fixing it.
Lean-to love
It’s a costly bargain for those whose favorites are moved or removed.
“I get why they want the lean-to moved,” Jan Hansen said in response to an AdirondackExplorer.org story about the Beaver Point relocation. “But part of the charm staying in a shore-adjacent lean-to is to wake up to the sound of water and the beautiful scenery.”
The old Beaver Point location offered those elements in abundance, with a dramatic vista across the water to Mount Colden and the cliffs that cradle Avalanche Lake beyond.
RELATED: An ode to a lean-to. Writing in the Adirondack Almanack, Richard Monroe laments the changes planned for his family’s favorite camping spot. READ MORE
Moving lean-tos helps preserve views enjoyed by people visiting a lake’s other shore, Alberga said. But DEC also wants to preserve fragile vegetation, whether on shorelines or the High Peaks alpine zones, where the state removed several lean-tos years ago.
Lean-to camping rules have also changed over the years, Alberga said. For instance, the “rule” that campers must make room to share the structure with late-arriving campers is no longer enforced, because it became outdated with the advent of lightweight backpacking tents. Decades ago campers’ only options were either cumbersome wall tents or the lean-tos, so declining to share could mean leaving someone unsheltered in the woods. Sharing may still be common etiquette, he said, though most people will prefer to pitch a tent elsewhere when they find a lean-to occupied.
Doug Arnold, a Lean2Rescue volunteer from Phoenix, NY, acknowledged during the Beaver Point relocation that some people grouse about relocations away from lake views, but he said others thank the group for protecting waterfronts. Through it all, the volunteers have ignored any politics, Arnold said, and “prided ourselves on working in the woods.”
“We’re here to be directed by the New York State DEC,” he said. “If they ask us to move a lean-to from the side of a lake up there,” he said, pointing to the wooded hillside where his crew (“Oy! … Oy!”…) was hoisting logs with pulleys, “they have a reason and we don’t question it.”
Dedicated volunteers
The group has been active for 15 years and has about 300 volunteers, including a regular core of about 40. Arnold singled out “lean-to saint” Hilary Moynihan in particular, both for coordinating volunteers and for providing local barn space that has become a “lean-to hospital” where the crew moves a structure when it needs more work than can be done on site.
“There’s always someone that would dispute what we’re doing,” Arnold said, “but we think, by and large, restoring a lean-to so that it has another 50 years of life is the important aspect, and we’re thankful to do it.”
Arnold worked the hillside, helping guide the logs along boards laid down to keep them from gouging into the forest floor. Below, several young men marched back and forth carrying the logs from the former shoreline campsite to the foot of the hill, where another man tied them to the hoisting rope. Above, next to the line of rope pullers, those with some carpentry skills drilled and hammered the logs back into the form of a three-sided cabin. In all, 14 volunteers completed the move and rebuild in about a day, with some having previously dismantled the lean-to and stayed overnight in the wilderness.
Lean-to enthusiast and historian Robert Williams’ voice rises when he discusses the condition of many of the structures. Their adopters report rot and other problems each year, he said, but DEC doesn’t invest sufficiently to protect most of them. He recalled visiting a lean-to at Tongue Mountain that’s in such disrepair, “why even leave it there?” Volunteers do admirable work, he believes, but these are public resources that deserve public attention.
“If the state says they’re public property,” he said, “you’re damn right they should be taken care of on a regular basis.”
Last year, Bloated Toe Enterprises published Williams’ book, “The Lean-to: A History from Ancient Times to the 21st Century.” Lean-tos in one form or another have existed since humans have needed shelter, he said, and the Adirondack style—four-log base topped by a sleeping platform, three log walls and a sloped and shingled roof—evolved from Scandinavian log builders when they settled in North America.
“The Adirondack lean-to has been called the best backwoods shelter that exists, and it probably is,” he said.
Researching the book was a retirement project that the former state education official pursued after a lifetime of camping in the shelters largely for the security of having a roof overhead instead of a tent.
Although Williams doesn’t object to the state pulling lean-tos away from water (“You can walk down to the lake”), his personal favorite one presents sweeping views of Long Lake.
Trees often fall down in the Adirondacks, and he recalled his terror from a night near Long Lake in 1995 when a derecho bent pines and spruces back and forth like windshield wipers. One tree snapped off and speared the ground nearby. He was safely in a cabin, not a lean-to, but the same lesson applied: A roof is critical equipment in dense woods.
“You can have all the best tents and lightweight stuff and that’s great,” he said, “as long as the weather’s good.”
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I’m all for maintaining and restoring lean-tos. But why dismantle and move an existing lean-to when all it really needs to stay right where it is is a new roof? “It’s an old design, it’s a safety concern- it’s too low and people bump their heads.” Well, how does moving that same lean-to to a new spot solve that better than a little landscaping work would? Or a jack? I guess folks will just occasionally bump their heads someplace else. Also, folks who move lean-tos or reorient them need to fully understand and appreciate why the current one is situated the way that it is. Turning a lean-to towards a lake to “enhance the view”, sounds like a great idea, unless you happen to be someone who camps there regularly, & know & could tell folks “If you do that, the winds off the lake will blow straight into the lean-to, along with the cold, rain, smoke, bugs & snow. Another consideration: lean-to’s and their fireplaces work together as one unit. Moving or reorienting the lean-to without doing the same to the fireplace (a-la Martha Reben) seems to me to be an unfinished job. A great lean-to with no useable fireplace on cold nights. Folks will just build their own- out of necessity, or start bringing in propane heaters, or actually building fires In the lean-tos, or shoveling coals under them (all of which I’ve seen at least evidence of being done). Seems to me those are safety concerns too. It is hard to convince me that it is more cost effective to totally dismantle one lean-to, take it somewhere, refurbish it, then relocate it somewhere else, while concurrently constructing a new lean-to, dismantling IT, hauling it to the vacant site of the one just taken down, and putting it up there. Why not just put a new roof on the one that sits fine where it is, and put a new one in the other spot. If a fresh coat of wood preservative is needed, like the new ones have, I’m pretty sure that can be pretty quickly done on site too. A new roof, some minor landscaping, maybe fixing a fireplace, and a new coat of wood preservative sure seems a lot easier & more cost effective to me than building dismantling /moving two lean-tos. Further, each of those lean-to’s has significant history. Much of it etched into their logs.”Wind Rain Fish”, “Beware the Winds”, “The He-man Group was here” MEAN something at Bull Rush Bay. The He man Group (that’s not me, by the way- I just use them as an example) weren’t “here” someplace else. MY recommendation would be, that public input be sought from those who use those structures, perhaps a “Lean-to Advisory Board” of some sort, in the planning stages, before work is done. Otherwise, the best of intentions run the risk of producing something less than the best of results. And yes- I WOULD (gladly) “put my Money where my mouth is” and volunteer to help with maintenance & restoration of the Bull Rush Bay lean-to in place. In fact, my brother and I already have. Our offer was turned down.