HIKE – Sunday Hikers Trails
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ISSN 098—8154 The Newsletter of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club Volume 36, Number 3 118 Park Street, S.E., Vienna, VA 22180-4609 March 2007 www.patc.net Historic Michener: A Cabin Nearly Lost he good news is that visitors to the Anna Michener Cabin in Pennsylvania’sT Michaux State Forest can still enjoy swinging on the porch, in the big great room, and preparing meals on a nice stove. The unsettling news is the cabin suffered a good bit of damage in a fire, which could easily have been much worse. On Dec. 10, Thomas Jorgensen and some buddies hiked by the cabin, saw damaged windows, and report- ed it appeared someone had broken into Michener and set it on fire. The cabin logs were blackened particu- larly along the wall and window by the right bunkroom, on the floor, and along the ceiling and walls. Photo by Pat Fankhauser Windows and sashes were busted The broken windows are just a small part of the damage done, and repaired, at Michener out, and there were two burned Cabin. The use of flammable items is not avoidable at the cabins, but proper care must be See Michener, page 6 exercised when handling burning light sources. In This Issue . Massarock Crew Volunteers Needed Council Fire . .2 Lee’s Overlook . .3 View from Great North Mountain Half Tales: Doggie Fashion . .3 SNP Summer Crews . .4 The 2007 Massarock Crew will construct new trail on Great Tribute to Darwin Lambert . .4 North Mountain located on the VA - WV border. Four weeks Gypsy Moth Emergency in MD .5 are available to volunteers: June 3 - 8, June 10 - 15, Sept. Bears Den Family Weekend . .5 Tails from the Woods . .6 9 -14, and Sept. 16 - 21. After Sunday evening in Green R Living . .7 Edinburg, including dinner at a local restaurant, each Hiker’s Notebook . .7 weekly crew loads up supplies and food for the week and Trails Organization 101 . .8 Give IRA to PATC . .9 leaves Monday morning to camp and work in one of our Silberman Cabin Nearly Ready . .9 more remote and beautiful areas. The crew welcomes new Forecast . .10 members. Details are available from Heidi Forrest, Trails Bob Pickett’s Appalachian Nature . .16 Massarock Summer Crews . .17 Management Coordinator, ([email protected]) 703/242- Volunteers Appointed . .17 J 0315. Also see page 17 for more details. Trailhead . .19 Stream Monitoring Begins . .22 www.patc.net/volunteer/trails/summercrews.html. Volunteer Ops/Swap Meet . .23 Help Needed . .24 Council Fire resident Lee Sheaffer sounded a Mallard duck call rent one in operation in that council members will be Pand brought his first PATC Council meeting to order responsible for updating the content in their business at 7:00 p.m. on Jan. 9, 2007, at the Club Headquarters. areas. Supervisor of Trails John Hedrick provided the Administrator Wilson Riley reported for Grants and SNP trails status after the Thanksgiving ice storm. Very Donations Chair Susan Nelson that as of the meeting, serious damage occurred with many fallen trees block- 217 donors had contributed $17,141 in response to the ing the AT and Skyline Drive. The estimate was that 2006 fund-raising appeal. Typically, donations will con- there were about 2,500 blowdowns that were cleared by tinue to trickle in over the next couple of months. Lee PATC sawyer crews and the Charlottesville and made a special presentation of a gavel to outgoing Southern Shenandoah Valley Chapters. President Tom Johnson. He talked briefly about the club organization and about the most efficient means of Supervisor of Lands Jim Peterson provided the 2006 bringing issues before council. He also welcomed Pat Fankhauser back from her recent illness. Conservation Easement Sales status. Supervisor of Facilities Mel Merritt described the measures that North Treasurer Ric Francke provided the November Monthly Chapter has taken to repair the damage to Michener Budget, Cabin/Shelters/Building Lands, Trail Lands, Cabin sustained during a December fire; many people and Capital Repair Funds reports. Cabin rentals remain have pitched in to make the necessary repairs at little or the highlight of the PATC financial picture. no cost to PATC. Doyle River Cabin is closed because the southern part of SNP cannot be reached except by walk- Trails, Lands, and Facilities ing in. Council approved a motion to transfer Vos Vice President for Operations Tom Johnson described Shelter funds to the Rocky Run account - this was to the potential impact of the Dominion Power-proposed, fund road work and does not involve additional money. 500KV powerline that is slated to cross the AT. Lee pre- Cabins Construction - Charlie Graf said Argo Cabin con- sented his observations of his meeting with Allegheny struction has resumed, and one trip per month is Power. PATC Archive & Library Committee member April planned; Butternut Cabin is moving along well. Henry Miller raised the issue of the fire hazard that the Horn (Shelters) reported a Garvey shelter hiker had fall- archival film from the 1930-40 period has represented. en and was evacuated; Lesser Shelter has been repaired This was presented in an e-mail exchange in December except for the window glazing. Bears Den - Vern and it has been decided that the remaining films will be Conaway said Bears Den manager Lori Watkins has converted to VHS (VHS has been shown to be the most stable archive video format – many recordable DVDs returned rested but can't do the maintenance; using display dropouts after about five years). Tom urged more contractors to do heavier work; Dave Appel flew council members to provide records for the archives. home to Wisconsin. Supervisor of Membership - Jim Tomlin said the Membership Monthly Report shows J Kerry Snow demonstrated a new PATC Web site current- membership at 6,530, with 133 new members. ly under development. The site is different from the cur- —Alan Day, Secretary HOW TO CONTACT US: HEADQUARTERS, SALES, CABIN RESERVATIONS, AND MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION Address: 118 Park Street, S.E., Vienna, VA 22180 Hours: Monday through Thursday, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Phone #: 703/242-0315 and Thursday and Friday 12 noon to 2 p.m. 24-hr. Activities Tape #: 703/242-0965 Facsimile #: 703/242-0968 To receive an information packet: Extension 10 Club e-mail: [email protected] Club President (leave a message), Lee Sheaffer: Extension 40 World Wide Web URL: www.patc.net STAFF: DURING REGULAR BUSINESS HOURS Director of Administration: Wilson Riley (Ext. 11) e-mail: [email protected] Trails Management Coordinator: Heidi Forrest (Ext. 12) e-mail: [email protected] Business Manager: Monica Clark (Ext. 15) e-mail: [email protected] Membership/Cabin Coordinator: Pat Fankhauser (Ext. 17) e-mail: [email protected] Sales Coordinator: Maureen Estes (Ext. 19) e-mail: [email protected] Club Officers and chairs contact info: Potomac Appalachian www.patc.net/about/contact.html Chief Editor: Linda Shannon-Beaver, [email protected] or call the main club phone number. Features Editor: Joanne Erickson Contact list published twice annually in the PA. Forecast Editor: Vince Ferrari, [email protected] 2 March 2007 • Potomac Appalachian Lee’s Overlook: 63,360,000 hat’s a large number: so large that I calculated it that it stays clear of debris and obstruction, in other Ttwice just to make sure it was correct. Give or take a words, make sure that a few problem inches do not stop few hundred thousand, it is the number of inches of many inches of trail. We will continue to add inch after trail PATC maintains. inch of trail as time goes on. The only thing that will limit us is the number of volunteers to actually build and main- Why inches and not feet or miles? If you build trail, tain all those inches. So if you are not already looking over maintain trail, or oversee a trail, you know that you a few thousand inches of trail, please come and join us. don’t do those things by the foot or mile, you do it by the You can be part of a 63-million-inch trail system. J inch. Trails are built one inch at a time. If you are an —Lee Sheaffer overseer, problems with the trail usually come to inch- es. Miles of trail can be clear, and the blow down that Note 1: You may have noticed a name change for this col- blocks the whole thing can be a few inches in diameter. umn. I would like to thank all those who sent in sugges- tions; there were many, and all were thoughtful. I like We have such a good trail system because we sweat the this one; I picture it as a broad rock outcrop where I can inches. Next time you go out hiking, look at waterbars, see all that is ahead. Thanks for the great suggestions. those structures that channel water off the trail. They are just a few inches wide, but without them, the whole Note 2: I usually will not mention specific projects as I trail could be unwalkable. Look at steps along the trail. think we all do such a great job at our tasks. Two recent They can be made of logs or stone or shaped into the turf projects need to be mentioned as above the ordinary. and they are usually only a few inches wide, but by mak- First, an ice storm hit SNP just after Thanksgiving, clos- ing steps, the trail is less steep and easier to maintain. ing a large section of the AT and all of Skyline Drive. Yes, trails are made by the inch, and PATC has made over PATC went to work with extra crews and many addition- 63 million of them.