Maintaining Chatfield Shelter
on the Appalachian Trail
In the early 1980's Glade Mt. Shelter was on Va. 86. Due to vandalism and littering it was decided to move the shelter a few miles north. In 1989 it was renamed the Louise Chatfield Shelter. Louise was one of the founding members of PATH in 1965. As she was very sick with cancer and could not walk so she was carried up to the shelter on a stretcher from Va.644.(about 1/4 mile from the road).
In 2002 we had our clubs first Summerfest. Summerfest is PATH's own Konnarock. We get together for a week to do a project. That week we redid the rock work in front on the shelter. We rehabbed the privy. We cleaned the stream out near the shelter. We redid the stone steps, the picnic area and put in some tent pads. This year at Emory 2011 we had two work trips to rehab the shelter again. We repainted the shelter(inside and outside), repaired the privy, worked on the rock work, and worked on the trail coming up to the shelter. The picture shows the Tuesday work crew. We had 18 workers both days.
In the back row in a blue shirt is Bill Chatfield. He is the son of Louise Chatfield. He was the caretaker of the shelter in the early 1990's. He came all the way from Atlanta, Ga. to work on this project. We were successfully able to rehab the shelter. It is our plan to rehab our other shelters in the upcoming years.
john hartpence-Secretary/PATH