Three quarters of the way on the Northville-Placid Trailfrom Averyville Road south southwest to Duck Hole, one passes through Paint Bed Notch before reaching an unnamed mountain with a summit elevation of 3694 feet west of the footpath. Moose Creek passes by its base within a short distance. I know this rise as Bear Trap Mountain. The crag has borne its name since.

Smith always referred to the mass as Bear Trap Mountain because a friend of a friend, during one of his benders, left an illegal steel-jawed trap up there somewhere. Positive the bear trap was abandoned with its big jaws sprung open and armed to go off, everyone agreed it would be safer to stay off the mountain. In 1937, Richard’s buddies Phil and Vince erected an unlawful cabin on state property from spruce logs and building materials scavenged from the scrap pile left behind after the Civilian Conservation Corps side camp was demolished.

Phil and Vince, while serving in that CCC side camp, metNoah John Rondeau, the region’s most fascinating facsimile of a hermit. His encampment at Big Dam a few miles downriver was a hangout for a number of the CCC enrollees on weekends. Their visits were quite beneficial to Noah’s larder, because his visitors brought him surplus food from the mess kitchen. Phil and Vince were outdoorsmen, loved life in the woods, and got along well with Noah.

Courtesy of Dr. Adolph G. Dittmar, Jr.

Lt. to Rt. Bertha Irwin, Mary Dittmar, Noah and Madeline Dodge. 1948 “I remember Noah went fishing long before we woke up. He caught some beautiful trout and prepared a breakfast fit for royalty.” — Bertha N. Irwin.

Once the Corps’ main project of rebuilding the dam at Duck Hole and upgrading the old government trail-lumber camp tote path into a fire control road along Ward Brook for motorized vehicles was completed, the government work camp was torn down, and Richard Smith took over the cabin in 1940 when Phil and Vince joined the Air Force.

It was an illegal structure, an outlaw camp, and eventually the game protector’s path brought him to the cabin. The note the enforcer placed on the table left no doubt about his feelings. It was clear and to the point: “Your camp is illegal but I see it being a benefit. It places someone in a remote area where they could be watchful for fires (i.e. lightning, careless hunters and fishermen). It might also save a lost hunter’s life. It is

so well hidden, it hurts nothing so leave it for now.”

Smith held the golden age of his life was the time 1934–1949, “a time in which an extraordinary man took me into his woodland camp and became my lifelong friend,” he related. He was referring to Noah John Rondeau the Hermit of Cold River Flow, and this is the story of how they met.