AT Museum Volunteer Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 13

Volume 2, Issue 13 - November, 2015
brought to you by Joe Harold, Appalachian Trail Museum Manager

I admit that I breathe a little sigh of relief and I can feel some stress leaving my body when closing day comes.  I really love when the Museum is open and welcoming visitors, but I also feel there is a time for rest and renewal, just like the trees of the forest, who drop their colorful leaves, store their energy in their roots and sleep until Spring.  It is just nice to not have to worry about filling shifts and organizing volunteers; at least for a while.

But, there is still plenty for me to do at and for the Museum.  Not two days after our "official" closing date, Ed Riggs and I opened the Museum for our last group of the season; I am conducting a full inventory of our retail stock and will start ordering new stuff for next season; I have lots of work planned for the new on-line store on our website, and there are always things to do in the Museum, to keep it safe for the winter and have it ready for the Spring.  As the seasons turn, so does the world of the A.T. Museum
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Annual Volunteer Recognition Event

Yesterday, we held our annual Volunteer Recognition Event, one of our favorite traditions at the Museum.  The day itself, was a beautiful fall day.  Clear azure sky, bright sun with a warm breeze occasionally rustling the fallen leaves around the Museum.

Refreshments in the basement

Volunteers mingle and talk

We started the event with some light snacks in the renovated basement, followed by a dedication to our new serviceberry tree that was planted in the middle of October.  We dedicated the tree to Katy Sexton, one of our most valued and dedicated volunteers, who passed away last year.  Larry said a few words about the dedication and then Jay told us a story of Katy and how she loved the serviceberry.  Georgia told us a little more about the tree and Red Wolf followed up with some interesting information.  It was a moving dedication.

Our new Serviceberry Tree

Larry Speaks

Jay shares a story of Katy

Georgia talks about the wonderful things we will see on this tree

Red Wolf speaks

Katy and Duffy

Next, we all headed to the Ironmasters Mansion to eat so much food, it was ridiculous. There was squash soup, meatballs, vegetable lasagna, pork bbq, corn pudding, baked ziti, meatloaf, salad, and more.  There were many pies and cookies for desert.  It was all very filling.

We finished up the event with our recognition part.  After talking about our milestones and accomplishments of the year, we thanks those of you that have gone that extra mile, whether you were present or not.  We also awarded our second annual President's Award to Gwen Loose and our Volunteer of the Year was Michele Burton.  

Gwen Loose - 2015 President's Award

Michele Burton - 2015 Volunteer of the Year

The museum exists because of all the volunteers.  Every minute that is donated is appreciated so much.  I thank you all for what you have given to the A.T. Museum and I hope you want to continue to serve at the Museum next season.

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Museum Closes for the Season, Re-Opens for School Group from Texas

November 1st was the last day of the season for the A.T. Museum, but we weren't done welcoming visitors.  A school group from Texas made arrangements to come visit the museum on November 4th and we were able to accommodate them for the second year in a row.  

Large group from Texas hanging out in the pavilion

Ed Riggs and I set up the place and three large groups rotated through the Museum in between doing other things like play by the pavilion and take a hike from Michaux road back to the park.  Once we give the kids a couple of challenges, they seemed to get a little more out of the Museum part of the visit.  After the last group came through, I shut everything down (this time for the season) and headed out to my car.  They were still having fun down at the pavilion and had made a nice fire in our new fire ring.  

Camp fire to end the day

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Camp Michaux

I'm sure most of you are aware of the amazing thing in the forest that is Camp Michaux.  This place, which are just the ruined foundations of a once great open area has a lot of history.  The area started off as a farm that supported the Iron Furnace and its workers by providing wheat and other produce.  In the early 1930s, it became a Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) camp and these guys replanted the mountains and built Michaux Road.  

When the war started, the CCC basically ceased to exist, as now those men were needed to fight the war.  Soon that remote camp became a POW interrogation camp, where valuable information was gleaned from the prisoners before they were moved to a traditional POW camp.  

After the war the camp was turned into a Church Camp that was active from the late 40s to the early 70s.  The place was a Church Camp longer than the CCC camp and POW camp combined and lots of kids created many fond memories of the place over the years.

I have become very fascinated with this area.  We take the Road Scholar Groups through the camp and show them a few of the ruins and talk about the camps some, but I have been wanting to explore the whole place for a while now.  I did that last week.  

The steps to nowhere. They used to take group pictures here.

This is the best time to walk through the camp.  The leaves have fallen from the trees and the underbrush has died back for the winter and you can see some of the ruins a little better.

The Cumberland County Historical Society has a nice self-guided walking tour that you can download and print from their website and we have an interesting book at the Museum that concentrates on the POW years.

I also found a very interesting website that has a lot of pictures from all the versions of the camp, but concentrates more on the people who went to the Church Camp.  

Water fountain built by the CCC

If you are looking for a nice walk around the forest this fall or winter.  Check out Camp Michaux.
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Eagle Project Improves Museum Grounds

Ali the Boy Scout has finished his Eagle Scout project.  He and his crew, rebuilt the fire ring, providing an area with a grate where you can cook.  They also built two picnic tables for the area and a nice fire wood rack.  I am very pleased with his work and wish him the best of luck on making Eagle.

New tables and fire ring

We hope to have a couple of nice picnics next year using these new fixtures on our grounds.

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Things Coming Down the Trail

March 26, 2016 - AT Museum opens for the 2016 season

AT Museum Volunteer Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 12

Volume 2, Issue 12 - October, 2015
brought to you by Joe Harold, Appalachian Trail Museum Manager

We are in the home stretch of this year's Museum season and the leaves are looking pretty nice around the park and up on the mountain.  The past month has been a pretty busy one and the last few weeks of the season will continue to be so.  Thanks to all who are giving their valuable time.  It really is appreciated.  Lots of pictures in this edition.
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Annual Volunteer Recognition Event

We have set the date for this year's Volunteer Recognition Event and moved the time to earlier in the day.  This year we will come together at the Ironmasters Mansion on Sunday, November 15th, 2015 at 1:00 pm.  All those who have contributed their time this year are invited and encouraged to attend as we have a delicious potluck dinner, tell some good stories and show our thanks for your dedication to the AT Museum.
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Far Away and Local Outreach 

Some of you may know that my wife, Lisa and I traveled up to Millinocket, ME this September for the Trail's End Festival, with some hiking in NY, before, and NJ, after the Festival.  We had a great time and I was happy to be able to add three new AT states that I have hiked in and to represent the AT Museum up in Maine.  

Bear Mountain from the top of West Mountain in NY

We drove to New York and spent a night on the trail near Bear Mountain.  The climb up West Mountain was very tough for us, as we hadn't been out on the trail in a while.

Appalachian Trail Lodge

We next traveled to Millinocket, Maine and checked into the Appalachian Trail Lodge, run by Ole Man and NaviGator.

After settling in, we set up the Museum's traveling exhibit in the Community Center and then proceeded to explore the small town.

AT Museum Traveling Exhibit

On Saturday morning, we headed to Abol Bridge and did a nice 15 mile day hike up the Blueberry Ledges Trail to The Birches and then down the AT where we encountered excited Northbounders, who were almost finished with their hike.  

A foggy morning on the Blueberry Ledges Trail

The fog burned off and the day was very pleasant.  We finished up back at Abol Bridge and we could now get a good view of Katahdin "The Greatest Mountain".  

Mt Katahdin from Abol Bridge

We finished up in Maine and received some good comments on the exhibit and headed down to New Jersey, where we hiked another three days with my wife's sister and her friend.  This was a part of NJ I had never seen before, as we spend most of our NJ time down in flat, sandy, Cape May.

Culver Lake from the top of Kittatinny Mountain

After that adventure, I had a speaking engagement at the nearby Green Ridge Village Senior Living Community near Newville at their Living and Learning session.  I talked about the history of the trail and the Museum and answered some very interesting questions form the residents, who seemed to enjoy my talk.  

It lifted my spirits to see that no one is ever too old to be interested in the trail and the Museum.

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The ALDHA Gathering

The Appalachian Long Distance Hiking Association (ALDHA) held its 34th Gathering last weekend.  This was once again a "local" event in relation to the Museum.  All the hikers, both young and old, came together on the campus of Shippensburg University, only a 30 minute drive over the mountain.  

The Museum's table set up, with some things to sell and a decent Silent Auction all with donated items.  

Tents of Gathering attendees line the edge of the field

More tents

My cheap Walmart tent.  It did the trick for the weekend, but isn't my normal shelter

One of the attendees, "Wood Nymph" had a pet rat named Little Girl

Saturday evening had a really nice talk from Cam "Swami" Honan who is an amazing hiker.  He talked about his "12 Long Walks" he did back in 2011 and 2012 where he traveled 12 long trails in the US and walked over 14,000 miles in 18 months.  Quite a guy. Check out his website The Hiking Life to learn more about this awesome man.

Swami talks about his dodgy knee

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Work Crew at the Museum

One of the things that ALDHA likes to offer after the Gathering, are various work trips that the members can participate in to help the trail and other AT entities.  The had a group out doing AT boundary work and a nice sized group of 19 with Ron Bungay at their lead, came to the museum to transform quite a few areas in preparation of our ongoing renovation projects.  

I had to head out to the board meeting early in the morning, so you could imagine my total delight when I came back to the Museum around 2:30 and saw all that had been accomplished.  

There used to be a cleaning closet here.  Not any more.

Top floor where most of the work was going on

Workers get to work

The old bathroom on the top floor is demolished.  

Sheet rock installed and some floor boards removed to
facilitate the completion of the HVAC ducting.

This vital work enabled us to prepare for the next phase of our renovations.  Eventually 50% of the floor boards in the top floor will be removed to create a mezzanine, allowing visitors to see the nice arched window from below.  This space will also be our Resource Library, where we will house our rare and historic books, guides and other publications for the use of researchers and other interested parties.  We have a long way to go, but this work group helped us get a lot closer than we were.

I didn't get any pictures, but the Museum grounds had a lot of work done to them too.  The grass was cut and a lot of weeding was done at the stone wall along the old road where the trail travels down to the parking lot.  Everything had a nice fall freshness that made me feel good.

The travel time guesstimate for the workers was around 113 hours and the volunteer hours were 119.

The Gathering brings people from all over and these states were represented by the workers. California, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland.

My UTMOST Thanks goes to the following workers, who gave their time and sweat to help the Museum realize its dream of expanding to every floor of the Old Grist Mill.

Ron "Yellow Shoes" Bungay

Susan Gail "SG" Arey

Warren & Ann "46 & Storyteller" Axtell

Marilyn "Ameba" Beckley

Mark "Capt. America" Bailey

Dave "Owel Dave" Fleischman

Cheryl "Nike" Hadrych

Veri "Misssing Kink" Hurst

Dan "Milesback" Houchins

Jeff Kunkleman

Pete "Peak" & Laura Lane

Thomas "Radar" Baker

Jim "Jimp" Paschetto

Deb & Charles "Maw & Paw" Tucker

Greg "Weather Carrot" Walter

George "Billy Goat" Woodard

Very note worthy is Billy Goat who probably has more trail miles than than the rest of the crew put together.

Ron

Thanks once again.  We really appreciate it.
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AT Museum Board Retreat

Back in April the Appalachian Trail Museum Board of Directors held their annual Spring business meeting and decided that a retreat would probably be a good thing to have in October, to see how far we have come since we first incorporated, where we are now, and where we want to go next.  Linda Witmer joined us back in April and was with us again this past Monday as the board came together at Margy's house.  

The board gets to work

With Linda's facilitation, the board figured out what is next for Appalachian Trail Museum, Inc., and made plans to update our documents and plans to show how we have grown over the last several years.  

Linda talks about a strategic plan

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Basement Update

Things continue to happen in the new Children's area in the bottom floor of the Old Grist Mill.  Greg of Graphik Masters, our exhibit designer dropped off two of the 14 state display boards for the basement children's section.  They still need to be mounted and several more need to be designed and built, but we are on our way.

Georgia

Tennessee

Make sure you go down to the basement the next time you are volunteering at the museum to check them out.  

We still have a lot of work gathering pictures (and permission for their use) and writing the copy that will go on the boards to highlight each state that the trail travels through, so if you have good pictures or can write a line or two, let us know. ____________________________________________

Captain Stupid Lives

If you have read our first published book, THRU: An Appalachian Trail Love Story, then you would recognize the trail name "Captain Stupid", the main protagonist of Richard Judy's first novel.  Larry Luxenberg, Richard and Margy Schmidt have collaborated to create a new Tee Shirt that we will sell at the Museum.  I think it came out rather nice. 

Captain Stupid - from THRU: An Appalachian Trail Love Story

Larry models the back of the shirt

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Things Coming Down the Trail

November 1st, 2015 - AT Museum closes for the 2015 season

November 2nd, 2015 - Last Road Scholar Hike of the season
November 5th, 2015 - Last Group comes to the Museum

November 15th, 2015 - 1:00 pm - Volunteer Recognition Event

An October addition to the Dead Woman's Hollow sign.

AT Museum Volunteer Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 11

Volume 2, Issue 11 - September, 2015
brought to you by Joe Harold, Appalachian Trail Museum Manager

There is a little crispy nip in the air lately.  Fall is not too far away.  As I head "Down East" to Maine for the Trail's End Festival, I hope to squeeze in some trail time and maybe see a moose or two.  The season is winding down, but there are still so many things happening in the next couple of months.  The building is now "climate controlled" and hopefully ready for the upcoming winter.  But before that, we still have our last two months of visitors to welcome.

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Annual Volunteer Recognition Event

We have set the date for this year's Volunteer Recognition Event and moved the time to earlier in the day.  This year we will come together at the Ironmasters Mansion on Sunday, November 15th, 2015 at 1:00 pm.  All those who have contributed their time this year are invited and encouraged to attend as we have a delicious potluck dinner, tell some good stories and show our thanks for your dedication to the AT Museum.  

Ironmasters Mansion

We have moved up the time to accommodate those who don't want to drive after dark and those who have to travel far to attend.

Anyone interested in volunteering at the Museum, especially as a Docent/Greeter are welcome to join us to meet the other volunteers and find out more about volunteering at the Museum.  I will be sending out a flyer soon and will be setting up the VolunteerSpot event so we can organize the food and drink items.  
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"Trail Magic" Documentary About Grandma Gatewood

Last year, Peter Huston and his crew came through the Museum and filmed a bit while making their documentary about Grandma Gatewood called "Trail Magic".  That film is now complete and ready for an interested audience.  

From the little bits that I have seen, it looks to be very interesting and features one of the Museum's early exhibits and one of our Hall of Fame inductees, Emma Gatewood.  

Grandma Gatewood Exhibit at Museum

We are working on having a screening in this area and I will let everyone know when I have firm details.  Everyone should try to see this great, informative, documentary.

UPDATE: Peter's program will be Saturday Oct. 10 from 3 to 5 at The Gathering. It will be our 16th A.T. Museum Symposium at the Gathering. Peter will also be showing the film as part of the Longwood Gardens Big Read of Ben Montgomery's book in the spring.
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Appalachian Trail Trivia

Check out this article and see how many of these little tidbits of information you already know.  They can always come in handy when you are talking to our visitors.

You can check it out here.

(I thought there 289 shelters, but I could be wrong)
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ALDHA Gathering - A Local Event Once Again

The Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association (ALDHA) is once again holding its annual event know as The Gathering at Shippensburg University.  This will be the 34th year of holding the event where hikers of all kinds come together to talk about their adventures and learn what is new on the many long distance trails that we all hike.  

Acorn, Poppins and Ketchup - Hikers from the Class of 2013
(Ron Tipton and Kip Redick seated)

The event starts on Friday, October 9th, and things happen through the 12th.  It is quite an experience.  There will be workshops and presentations, a Hiker Fair, apple contest and the Feature Presenter is Cam "Swami" Honan who is an amazing hiker who has logged over 55,000 miles on numerous trails throughout the world.  

Registration for the event is only $20 and of course benefits the trail.  It would be great to see all you great people who volunteer at the museum at the event.  

You can find out more about The Gathering Here.
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New, Updated AT Museum Website

If you haven't already checked it out, point your browser to www.atmuseum.org and check out our new, updated website.  Alan Strackeljahn, Jim Foster and myself dedicated quite a few hours moving all of the content to the new host and giving the interface an upgrade.  The new site will also have a new feature of an Online Store.  I still have a lot of work to do to make the store the way I want it, but it is up and running and my one man shipping department (me) is standing ready to take your orders. 

Along with the the Special Features, which are now called the Online Museum, we now have a calendar that will show all the happenings at the museum and around the area and also a blog like News feed where we hope to keep everyone up-to-date on the interesting things that happen at the museum in between these newsletters.  

Check it out.

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Things Coming Down the Trail

September 18th to 20th, 2015 - Trail's End Festival - Millinocket, ME

September 18th, 2015 - Road Scholar Hike

October 9th to 11th, 2015 - ALDHA Gathering - Shippensburg, PA

October 12th, 2015 - Road Scholar Hike

November 1st, 2015 - AT Museum closes for the 2015 season

November 2nd, 2015 - Last Road Scholar Hike of the season

November 15th, 2015 - 1:00 pm - Volunteer Recognition Event

I haven't taken a lot of pictures around the museum this month, but I leave you with this crackling fire in the newly build fire pit as dusk settles around the museum.

AT Museum Volunteer Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 10

Volume 2, Issue 10 - August, 2015
brought to you by Joe Harold, Appalachian Trail Museum Manager

I haven't been to the museum in over two weeks and I really miss it.  My vacation to New York and New Jersey went great.  I got to see some really beautiful country up in the Adirondack Mountains and even get a nice hike in, climbing DeBar Mountain.

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Excavation for the Ramp

Ever since the ramp started getting built, we have been trying to figure out how to get the rain water that falls abundantly in the valley to not seep into our beautiful Grist Mill, but to flow around it and continue its journey to Mountain Creek and beyond without taking a trip through the utility side of the basement or more importantly, our new, developing Children's section.  Jack Adams, leader of the ramp building crew, helped us out some with some digging, soil movement and drainage installment last week.  

Where the ramp will come in

PhysEd moves the dirt to its new home

We had one major rain incident this summer, that brought in some water along with sand through the north walls of the building.  Although, the water wash hasn't repeated itself since that one time, even though we have had several heavy downpours, we are still concerned that exhibits we install down there may be damaged by a possible repeat flooding.  

Pipe to help drain the water around the building

Buried pipe

This excavating is part of the project.  We are hoping that these steps, along with others will keep the water out of the basement and our exhibits safe.

Jack inspects the work

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A Children's Bookcase

Linda Patton, one of the Museum's benefactors, has donated over twenty books to start our new Book Nook area that will be in the corner of the basement Children's Area.  The selections have been coming in over the last week or so and the titles are very interesting and inspiring for our future young visitors.  

A nice selection

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PayPal Comes to the Docent Desk

I know everyone loves using the Tablet software to run the sales of the Museum Gift Shop, but we also find ourselves hating the software every once and a while.  The current program we use has definitely been a boon for the Museum and has helped to increase our retail sales and thus bringing in much needed funds for the Museum Renovations, but sometimes it can be a little temperamental.

I have been looking into finding an easier program to help with recording our sales and I have found it in the PayPal Here Application.  The good thing about this program is that it is directly connected to the Museum's PayPal account and the funds flow is easier to track and report on for transfer into our other business software.  

I have found that this application works so much better than our current one.  Not as sensitive and easier to find things, delete any miscues if the do happen and complete the sale.  For the tech types you can even have a visitor basically check themselves out using their phone and PayPal account.  I truly geeked out on that function.  

So, I will be playing with it the rest of the season and seeing how it works before we commit and anyone who whats to help with the "beta" test, is welcome to start using it during their next shift.  
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Boy Scouts about the Museum Grounds

Anyone volunteering or visiting the Museum lately might have seen a crew of young men working around the stone fire pit down the hill from the Museum.  This is Ali and his crew.

The job started

Ali is a Boy Scout from Shippensburg going for Eagle, who needed a project to do and we are happy to welcome him to the museum as he rebuilds the fire pit and constructs some tables for the nice shady area around the pit.  

Keyhole shaped fire pit, with a cooking area

If you see him and his crew down there, stop by to ask him questions about his project and see how it is going.  

Progress continues

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Things Coming Down the Trail

August 16th, 2015 - 2:00 pm - Public Program - Wild Edibles

August 22nd, 2015 - 10:00 am - Basement Committee Meeting

August 23rd, 2015 - 2:00 pm - Public Program - Senior Citizen Thru Hike Story

September 7th, 2015 - Road Scholar Hike

September 18th to 20th, 2015 - Trail's End Festival - Millinocket, ME

September 18th, 2015 - Road Scholar Hike

October 9th to 11th, 2015 - ALDHA Gathering - Shippensburg, PA
October 12th, 2015 - Road Scholar Hike
November 1st, 2015 - AT Museum closes for the 2015 season
November 2nd, 2015 - Last Road Scholar Hike of the season
November ?, 2015 - Volunteer Recognition Dinner

Take care,

EarthTone