Hidden gems polished by loving hands
There really are forest sprites, mysterious creatures who sprinkle their magic through the woods and delight all who visit.
Two such sprites are Thomas and Mary Jorgensen, a married couple 70 years young who live in rural Virginia and who have spent thousands of hours over the last 25 or so years organizing maintenance of an unusual and often-overlooked string of rustic cabins along the Appalachian Trail and other hiking destinations.
The Jorgensens have provided crucial leadership—and lots of muscle—for the work of the nonprofit Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC). The club’s 49 cabins, rented to the public as well as to club members, provide an income stream that funds maintenance the famed Appalachian Trail: the chainsaws, weed whackers, shovels, rakes and hoes needed to keep the main trail and various spur trails safe and inviting.
Completed in 1937, the AT stretches 2,198 miles from Georgia to Maine and has given through-hikers and day-hikers from around the globe a chance to experience the glorious Appalachian Mountains up close.
PATC’s cabins extend from the Charlottesville, Virginia, region to Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and were built by various groups and individuals: forest rangers, member of the PATC, young men of the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, and, reportedly, even a few moonshiners during Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Thomas is one of about six regional supervisors for cabin maintenance. Each of the supervisors, he says, is responsible for seven or eight cabins apiece and for organizing teams of volunteers who keep the cabins in readiness year-round for renters. That means buying and transporting to the cabin sites such supplies as lumber, paint and stain, a new water heater here and a propane tank there, replacement appliances and plumbing equipment.
Although rustic in nature, some of the cabins are upscale, so the entire enterprise adds up to one far-flung rental property. Because the cabins are operated as not-for-profit amenities, they are not listed on Airbnb, VRBO or other commercial rental platforms. And that’s why their nightly rates are far, far below the market value for similar, privately-owned properties, yet generate $1 million a year.
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Oh, my aching back!
So how did Thomas Jorgensen, and later his wife, Mary, get involved in this challenging pastime? Today they are semi-retired from their busy careers owning a staffing agency, but a few decades ago it was a different story.
Thomas explains: “I became a single parent when my son was about 13 or 14 years old and active in Scouting. I got tired of sleeping on rocks (and hiking) every weekend, so I talked my son into the idea of hiking one weekend, staying at a cabin with a mattress the following weekend. So I have hiked about 50 percent of the AT, and we stayed in a couple of cabins that needed serious help.
“So just being a decent person we fixed what we could. Two months later PATC sent keys to a cabin, uninhabitable at the time, but told us we could stay for free anytime we wanted and fix it as we could. My son and I had a good time putting that cabin in the system. Later, after I met Mary and my son went to college, we ‘converted’ from trail cabins to cabins only.
“In about 1998 or 1999 was started a ‘Southern Slacker’ group of volunteers, and we would take one cabin a year and fix it up: add a kitchen, re-chink the log cabin, add a 20-foot by 40-foot deck, whatever.”
It was an all-volunteer effort, sometimes drawing in 75 or 100 workers over the course of a summer. One volunteer would be responsible for nothing but cooking for the rest of the crew, and the others would take on tasks that tapped into any special skills, like carpentry, roofing or plumbing. Unskilled workers got to do “easy” jobs like cutting wood or building rock walls. Child labor was encouraged, meaning, kids could pick up little stones or deliver cups of water or tea.
Each day at 5 p.m. Thomas would unpack his special work box stocked with cocktail ingredients for the adults. That helped ease the aches and pains.
Now that they’re older, Thomas and Mary have eased off the jobs like climbing ladders to paint tin roofs and other major work, but they take up to half a dozen Monday through Friday work trips each summer to spruce up cabins.
Is there still magic? Yes. There have been extraordinary animal encounters: Mary is terse (“snakes”) but Thomas shares one especially vivid memory.
“We were in a cabin and there were six of us there. I went to take my Coleman onto the picnic table to make bacon for breakfast. I open the stove and this humongous mama bear was standing by the edge of the cabin. She mussed around, drank water out of a spring, then went down the hill maybe 100 feet and let out one heck of a roar. And sure enough, three little cubs came out of a tree. She sat down with her back against the tree trunk and nursed the cubs right in front of us. After they got done eating, they came to the cabin spring area and played in an area nest to our cabin.”
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Hidden gems polished by loving hands
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Hidden gems polished by loving hands
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Hidden gems polished by loving hands
Word of mouth
Like many a good thing, word of mouth has been a driver of traffic to the PATC rental cabins…not only local word of mouth but worldwide. “I remember six guys from Ireland who were in Baltimore learning how to do HVAC work, and they heard about it. They didn’t know that America shuts down for Thanksgiving and they had four days off. So they just rented a cabin and we met them out there. We had Thanksgiving there.”
Other groups have included a group of older ladies who are quilters. Now in their 80s, they get rides in every year with their grown children and spend their time sitting around tables and quilting together.
Families have rented different cabins at different stages of their lives, perhaps starting with the simplest (and cheapest) when children are young, and then gradually moving up to cabins with more advanced features.
And what are these features? Thomas Jorgensen explains that some cabins are listed as primitive, and may have no running water or indoor toilets; flashlights are mandatory for these “wooden tents.” There are some with electrical service but not running water. Up the scale are those with hot and cold running water but wood heat only; so renters have to “buy wood, bring wood, find wood, or chop wood.”
The fourth class are the cabins with air conditioning and centralized heat. Pretty swank.
All it takes to find these gems is the willingness to step off the beaten path. Ready?
Hidden gems polished by loving hands
Rent a cabin
To view all the cabin options, visit patc.net/cabins. The webpage is loaded with information, including descriptions of the 49 cabins and those temporarily closed for maintenance and repairs, cabin policies, and booking information. Reservations are required.
Note that many cabins are available only to Potomac Appalachian Trail Club members, but it’s easy to join right on the reservations page. Membership prices range from $30 for an individual senior, to $55 for a family of two adults plus under-18 children, to $750 for a lifetime couple membership.
Members can enjoy discounts on classes, events and merchandise, a free monthly newsletter and networking opportunities to learn about volunteering, and of course access to the many members-only cabins.
The primitive cabins begin at $25 a weeknight, with modern cabins at $70. Top rate is $650 for a three-night stay for up to 17 people at Blackburn semi-primitive cabin.