Hikers relax in front of the Eckville Shelter, one of two Appalachian Trail shelters slated for demolition ( ) For nearly 40 years, Mick Charowsky has lived in a converted wooden barn in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Charowsky is the caretaker of the Eckville shelter, a historic bunkhouse built in 1880, which sits at mile 1,235 of the Appalachian Trail (AT). The AT consists of about 2,200 miles of rocky footpaths, rugged hill climbs, and historic shelters like Eckville.
Scattered roughly a day’s hike apart along the trail, these simple structures—from rough wooden lean-tos to fully enclosed cabins—are more than a place to rest. To a tired hiker who’s just pushed through hours of relentless rain, freezing winds, or blistering summer heat, these shelters are sanctuaries, a place to drop a heavy pack, cook a warm meal, and kick up a pair of aching feet. Now, the National Park Service (NPS), which manages the AT alongside the National Forest Service and multiple state agencies, is preparing to tear down both the Eckville shelter and another nearby structure, called the 501 shelter.
An NPS spokesperson told Outside that the shelters aren’t up to its safety standards and should be removed. But a vocal chorus of AT hikers and locals are outraged by the plans for demolition. They have launched a campaign, called Save Our Shelters, to push back on the plan.
The campaign includes a website and petition. If it can’t be operated as a shelter, at least let us take possession of it rather than see another iconic piece of our community needlessly destroyed.” Darree Sicher, a local advocate who co-chairs Save Our Shelters, puts it more succinctly. The 501 shelter has already been closed pending the demolition, but the Eckville shetler is still open.
A spokesman for the NPS told Outside that tearing down the shelters as part of a larger effort to rewild the trail, promoting primitive camping over permanent structures. The NPS says both shelters are “nonconforming” because agency policy requires all shelters to be more than two miles from a road or other motorized access point, and the Eckville and 501 shelters are nearer than that to the nearest roads. Shelters built close to a road—like Eckville and 501—frequently attract non-hikers looking to party, leading to litter, property damage, and overcrowded bunks.
The NPS spokesperson did not specify when the shelters would be torn down. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), the national nonprofit dedicated to maintaining the trail, supports demolishing the shelters, saying the removal is part of a long-term plan to help the AT’s camping system—which currently includes more than 250 permanent shelters—impacts nature as little as possible. Luke Weir, a spokesperson for the ATC, told Outside that the logic behind removing shelters like Eckville comes from the trail’s Comprehensive Plan, drafted by the NPS and Forest Service in 1981.
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