Thursday, July 31, 2008

Historic Appalachian Trail shelter to be dismantled

The last Appalachian Trail hikers shelter built by York-area native Earl Shaffer will be removed from atop Peters Mountain in Dauphin County Saturday. The shelter will be preserved for display in a planned Appalachian trail museum.

The last remaining shelter built on Peters Mountain in Dauphin County by Appalachian Trail icon Earl Shaffer will be taken down Saturday. The shelter, a small, three-sided log structure that sleeps about four hikers, was built in the early 1960s by Shaffer, a York-area native who in 1948 became the first man to complete the entire 2,175 trail from Georgia to Maine in one hike.

The shelter will be dismantled after a ceremony honoring the 60th anniversary of Shaffer's groundbreaking hike. Volunteers will carry its 55 small logs and its original tin roof three miles to the nearest parking area. Those pieces will be taken to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Scott Farm work center in Cumberland County to be stored until the shelter can be reconstructed as an exhibit in a planned Appalachian Trail museum.

Officially, the shelter, the smallest still in use on the trail, has no name. It was known as the Peters Mountain Shelter from 1983 until 1993, when that name was usurped by a new, larger shelter built nearby. Members of the Harrisburg-based Susquehanna Appalachian Trail Club, which maintains that section of the trail, decided to leave the old shelter as long as it was still usable, although it was no longer maintained. The decision to remove the shelter was made to prevent further deterioration so it could be used at the planned museum, which will be located at Pine Grove Furnace State Park, near the trail's halfway point.

Shaffer, who also was the first man to hike the entire trail in both directions, was instrumental in relocating about 70 miles of the trail in the midstate during the 1950s, helping to scout the route, most of which is still used today. Shaffer built five other shelters along the trail in the midstate. None of those still stands.

Organizers have gained preliminary approval from the state for the museum, which will be housed in an old mill near the park's general store. If remaining red tape can be negotiated in time, they hope to open the museum by the start of next spring's hiking season.