AT Museum Volunteer Newsletter - April 2018

March 2018

Brought to you by Nathaniel "Angry Bird" Shank, Appalachian Trail Museum Manager

New Mail/Register Box on 2018 Halfway Sign

Check out our new donation box. (feeding bear is not recommended in the wild)

                                                                                                                                                 

Important Reminders

Hall Of Fame Banquet & Festival May 4th & 5th

          On May 4th we will be at the Allenberry Resort Inn, located in Boiling Springs, PA. The evening will begin with a reception at 6 pm, followed by the banquet at 7 pm. The Buc Hill Aces will be our musical entertainment for the night.

2018 Appalachian Trail Hall Of Fame Inductees

Click Here For Tickets To The 2018 Hall Of Fame Banquet

We have established a special email address for questions concerning the Appalachian Trail Hall Of Fame Banquet: atmbanquet@gmail.com

Hall Of Fame Festival May 5th
          On May 5th the Festival will be held at the Pine Grove Furnace State Park. The picnic lunch is open to the public free of charge, but donations are welcome.

Volunteer for the A.T. Hall of Fame Festival

                                                                                                                                                  

AT Flip-Flop Festival

          April 28th & 29th in Harpers Ferry, WV. Anyone interested in volunteering to man a display at events like this one please let me know by email at manager@atmuseum.com.

http://www.flipflopfestival.org/

                                                                                                                                                 

AT Museum Library Help

          A crew of volunteers will be needed to attach film to each bookcase shelf (to protect books from wood off-gassing and acid) and put the shelves back into the cases. Someone with excellent penmanship will be needed to write call numbers on book slips as well.

Other jobs will come to light as the collection processing begins. Any volunteer with previous library experience could be especially valuable, but anyone with time and an interest in helping can let Linda know. She can be contacted at lpatton@fsu.edu.

You might want to check out her website at booksforhikers.com.

                                                                                                                                                 

Angry Bird Trail Story

          When I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail I did it in sandals and hiked with a banjo. The banjo was given the name Uncle Sam. My trail name could have been the detective, officer, cow whisperer or something along the lines of hillbilly banjo hippie creep but I stuck with Angry Bird because the people I ended up hiking with already knew me from the Appalachian Trail. I also had some very cool bird experiences where I was convinced that they had planned to attempt to kill me once again. Here is one great bird story I have...

          August 16th, 2014: That morning I had hiked a detour from Oldenburg Lake Trail to Crescent Lake, and then I took the White Fish Creek Trail to Odell Lake. Then at Windigo Pass (trail mile 1882.9 in Oregon) I had taken a seat on a log to break for lunch. As I was eating my lunch I noticed a high volume of chip monk activity. These chip monks were expecting me to drop food. I laughed at the thought of a thru-hiker dropping food! Then as I proceeded to eat my granola I noticed a screech??? As soon as I turned around I caught a glimpse of one of them flying away!!! A hawk had swooped down and grabbed him from right behind my left shoulder. I have heard owls catching prey in the middle of the night but finally just now saw a bird of prey in action actually catching its prey. The good news is that I was not the target this time. That made me very happy. :)

                                                                                                                                                 

April 28th - AT Flip Flop Festival in Harpers Ferry, WV

April 29th - Ironmasters challenge trail run and hike

May 4th - Hall Of Fame Banquet

May 5th - Hall Of Fame Festival

May 7th - Road Scholar Hike

May 31st - AT Museum Program about women of the Appalachian Trail

June 2nd - AT Museum Children's Festival

June 16th - Red Run Park AT Festival in Waynesboro, PA

AT Museum Volunteer Newsletter - March 2018

March 2018

Brought to you by Nathaniel "Angry Bird" Shank, Appalachian Trail Museum Manager

2018 Hours of operation

Saturday, March 31 to Sunday, April 29 – Weekends, Noon to 4:00PM

Saturday, May 5 to Sunday, July 15 – 9:00AM to 4:00PM every day

Monday, July 16 to Sunday, August 19 – Noon to 4:00PM every day

August 22 to October 28 - Noon to 4:00PM Wednesday thru Sunday

(Open Labor Day Monday, September 3, and, Columbus Day, Monday, October 8)

Special Events:      Times to be announced

New maps of the Michaux State Forest ($15)

New strings and bridge on hiker lounge guitar

                                                                                                                                                 

Museum Opens 8th Season
          The museum will be open on March 31st at noon! We may still have snow on the ground, but unless the roads are covered or dangerous we plan to be open. 

                                                                                                                                                 

Hall Of Fame Banquet & Festival May 4th & 5th

          On May 4th we will be at the fully renovated Allenberry Resort Inn, located in Boiling Springs, PA. The evening will begin with a reception at 6 pm, followed by the banquet at 7 pm. The Buc Hill Aces will be our musical entertainment for both the banquet and the festival.

2018 Appalachian Trail Hall Of Fame Inductees

Click Here For Tickets To The 2018 Hall Of Fame Banquet

We have established a special email address for questions concerning the Appalachian Trail Hall Of Fame Banquet: atmbanquet@gmail.com

Hall Of Fame Festival May 5th
          On May 5th the Festival will be held at the Pine Grove Furnace State Park. The picnic lunch is open to the public free of charge, but donations are welcome. Your donations help us create new displays like the one pictured below. So far the schedule looks like this...

10:00am-Ron Rosen representing Elizabeth Levers
 11:00am-Graybeard presentation in lower level of museum
12:00pm-Picnic Lunch and music by the Buc Hill Aces
 1:00pm-Libby Hargrave representing George Masa
 2:00pm-Mountain Music by Buc Hill Aces

Linda Patton will also be giving tours of our library project and we'll be showing our new Avery canoe display at this time!

Another great display by Graphik Masters of York, PA

                                                                                                                                                 

Renovations

          We have had a few great volunteers busy this winter working on getting our second floor ready for exhibits. If you would like to help with renovations please let us know at manager@atmuseum.org. You don't have to be a handyman but it would definitely help if you are. Lately, we have installed insulation in the top floor walls, painted areas of the resource library, spackled a few walls and moved in some furniture for the library/office use.

AT Museum Cleanup on March 24th

                                                                                                                                                 

The Appalachian Trail Museum's Research Library to be established in 2018!

The first week of April, Linda Patton will be traveling from Florida to Pennsylvania to start work as the founding Librarian for the Research Library which will be set up on the 3rd floor of the Museum. Linda (trailname "eArThworm") is a long-time member of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the Florida Trail Association, a former backpacker and trail builder, and a retired librarian from Florida State University. She will be bringing her collection of about 750 books; David Crooks will be bringing his collection of about 550 books and Roger Williamson's of just over 300 books. Linda will also be bringing a few books donated by the ATC, and there are possibly 1000+ books in storage in Carlisle. All together, there could be around 3,000 books to be processed into the Research Library's collection. Due to lack of space (and funds) maps, videos, and other types of materials requiring special housing will most likely have to wait to be added to the collection in the future.

Linda has already begun ordering the furniture, equipment and supplies for the library, hoping

to have everything delivered to the Museum and set up by the time she begins work in April. Joan McKean, another retired librarian and Museum volunteer, will be assisting Linda as much as she can. But Linda will most likely be staying for only eight weeks, and 3,000 books are a lot to process; so she will be looking for other volunteers to assist in various ways. The first job will be off-loading (sometimes heavy) boxes from delivery trucks, carrying them to the 3rd floor and doing some minor assembly on the furniture. Starting on the 9th, an assembly-line crew will be needed to attach film to each bookcase shelf (to protect books from wood off-gassing and acid) and put the shelves back into the cases. Someone with excellent penmanship will be needed to write call numbers on book slips.

Other jobs will come to light as the collection processing begins. Any volunteer with previous library experience could be especially valuable, but anyone with time and an interest in helping can let Linda know either now or when she arrives. She can be contacted at lpatton@fsu.edu.

You might want to check out her website at booksforhikers.com.

    

                                                                                                                                                 

Road Scholar Hike April 16th
          First road scholar hike of the Season. These hikes start at Shippensburg Road and end at the AT Museum(8 miles). The group is usually made up of people from all around the USA. If you've never volunteered to help on one of these hikes I encourage you to at least tag along and see what it's like. Bring your own water and lunch! Link to Details: Here

                                                                                                                                                 

AT Flip-Flop Festival April 28th

          Last year was the first time that the AT Museum attended the Flip-Flop Festival in Harpers Ferry, WV. Here are a few photos from that event. We will be attending the festival again on the 28th of April and hope to meet a lot of future thru-hikers. Maybe we will be able to acquire some delicious West Virginia pepperoni rolls at this event as well!

AT Museum stand in the center with banjo (2017)

                                                                                                                                                 

Angry Bird Trail Story

          Hiking out of Harpers Ferry after talking my youngest brother into hiking the entire state of Maryland with me was depressing. It was the last time I expected to hike with a family member during my hike. I wanted to share so much of my hike with people I knew. I thought about it a lot actually. So when I got to Waynesboro, VA I decided to call my older sister who lived near VA Beach and asked if she would hike part of Virginia with me... Then she said yes! Everything changed!

          The next day I got her to meet me at Reeds Gap which is mile 13.6 on the Blue Ridge Parkway and approximately 20 trail miles south of Rockfish Gap where I hitched to Waynesboro, VA. From Reeds Gap we got a ride to Blue Ridge Parkway mile 51.7 and hiked .4 miles south to the Punchbowl Shelter. After picking apples and staying the night at the shelter we set off on our north bound hike back to the car. On our journey we got to experience trail magic, sunset views, unfiltered water, fresh unwashed non-homogenized/non-pasteurized/non-demoralized organic apples and pizza hut.

          At the end of the second day, we had hiked 47.8 miles over Bald Knob, Cole Mountain, The Preist and Three Ridges back to Reeds Gap. She summited three 4,000 foot mountains and hiked nearly 50 miles with me. I still feel bad for pushing the limits.

Advice from Angry Bird: Walk slow and take a lot of breaks when in the wild.

                                                                                                                                                 

Coming down the trail
          March 30th - Pine Grove Furnace State Park campground opens
          March 31st - AT Museum opens
          April 1st - Ironmasters Mansion opens for guests
          April 16th? - Museum library project starts
          April 16th - Road Scholar Hike
          April 28th - AT Flip Flop Festival in Harpers Ferry, WV
          April 29th - Ironmasters challenge trail run and hike
          May 4th - Hall Of Fame Banquet
          May 5th - Hall Of Fame Festival
          May 7th - Road Scholar Hike
          May 31st - AT Museum Program about women of the Appalachian Trail
          June 2nd - AT Museum Children's Festival
          June 16th - Red Run Park AT Festival in Waynesboro, PA