i will reserve my submission for now as to not pursuade in one direction or the other.
~Still Steve
i will reserve my submission for now as to not pursuade in one direction or the other.
~Still Steve
I stayed there quite some time ago when Tillie was alive and cooked us breakfast. I still voted in your pole based on that original stay, but I wonder if the place is still like it was 8-9 years ago? To have a pole like this suggests there could be problem. I look forward to more comments.
I stayed there in '98. It was great back then.
Don't take anything I say seriously... I certainly don't.
I haven't stayed there, but visited and was very impressed.
I was there in March, AWESOME!
Took my 1st ever zero day, helped them load manure and work in the gardens.
Neville and Michael are amazing hosts, the place is really, really beautiful, tons of gardens in and more coming. Add Yoga and Massage, hot showers, great food, superb hospitality, etc...............what more could we want on our AT hikes than this?
It was a clean place with really good food and nice hosts. They run it like a business as it should be run if they want to stay in business.
Stayed there. Loved it. Neville & Michael are great hosts. I had great chilli, and lots of it, for dinner and availed myself of a massage.
The one photo in my gallery if you click on the link at the left is a sunrise photo that I took when I stayed there.
I stayed there one night in 2006 on my AT thru-hike. Tillie and her granddaughter were there. It was one of my most memorable, truly satisfying, and enlightening stays on my entire thru! Staying that one night and day enriched not only my hike but truely my entire life! I, and the the AT, surely miss you Tillie! Thank you! You made a difference and continue doing so to this day in my life!
I heard it was nice but I also heard that the "donations" are mandatory and managed in such a was as to really mean there was a fixed price for lodging, meals,etc. Nobody that I spoke with begrudges them the right to ask for and accept donations (after all, it is a priviledge to stay there), there were just some issues with the way the thing was marketed and handled. Again, this is second hand info so take it for what it's worth but I heard from 3 different guys that I felt like were reliable.
What's wrong with paying for your lodging? Given how cheap some hikers can be, making it clear up front the price for the service seems to me like a great idea. I've heard too many stories of 'donations' being considered totally unnecessary. There are trail angels and there are hostels. The first are in it for love, the second are trying to run a business. Some hostel owners are willing and able to be generous and offer a lot of services for little or no money - but not everybody can afford it and shouldn't be expected to.
The prices are fixed- posted- and up front. I don't remember anything being for donation. They do have a trust jar in the bunkhouse for sodas and snacks that some hikers seem to think is optional. One guy had- the day before I got there- helped himself to all he wanted- even took their deer meat from the freezer- along with all the money in the trust jar- stayed - ate- got a ride back to the trail- then refused to pay.
This has long been one of the special places along the trail and has only got better over time...
post would be misconstrued. the issue was not about paying per se, it's just the issue seemed to be this: if there is indeed a fixed price for room or meal (rather than a donation which implies voluntary and/or variable amounts) it should be stated as such on the front end. Nean indicates in the post above that the issue has been resolved which is as it should be. Other than this issue, i heard nothing but good things about the place. As I stated, I did not stay there - just relaying trail scuttlebutt from people whom I felt were responsible and above board.
Great kawfee!!!
E-Z---"from sea to shining sea''
I stayed there in 03 in the bunkhouse and thought it was okay. Ms Tillie was wonderful and served a good breakfast for a small price. I stayed there about 3 weeks ago in the cabin and was very well pleased. The best I can remember the prices were given up front and they were reasonable. The food was "all you could eat" and the accommodations were comfortable and clean. I don't believe I would stay there in the tenting area because it was away from everything else and you would do just as well to stay in the woods off the trail. Michael and Neville are great hosts running a business, not a charity.
4shot, sometimes, AT hosts rely on the honesty, respectfulness, and awareness of AT hikers to make a donation because they don't want to feel like they are running a for-profit business! Some hosts still feel like all they are doing is assisting someone in need and they have some resources to help some of those in need. Some use the word "donations" to avoid complicating things with legal or economic issues, such as licensing, taxation, inspections, etc. which if some of these AT hosts had to adhere to, would seem too much hassle or unwanted expense. Hence, there would not be so many helpful AT hosts and not make the AT hiking experience what it is today!
I have not been there in several yrs, but I do recall things being made clear to me! I remember it all as Nean saying it currently is.
FWIW, I was on the last few dollars of alloted trail money for that section of the AT ending in Pearisburg Va. Neville, Tillie's grand daughter(great grandaughter?), was there too. Neville was giving well worth $10 foot massages to hikers. Tillie let me work off my ridicoulsly resonable costs by mowing some of the lawn. I think she expected me to only mow for about 15 -30 mins of the tall grass. She even said, "that's enough, you have worked for your stay!"
Tillie was extremely gracious, bright, alert, intelligent, and generous. She rightly corrected some of my mistaken plant identifications. She may have been a botanists or biologusts if I recall correctly!
Her husband and her were attracted to the region when he worked as Assistant to the Secretay of the Interior in the Carter Administration studying the then severly endangered Eastern Elk. Yes, elk used to roam the AT! In the log cabin, where hikers are treated to a sit down home cooked b-fast, there are two pics on each side of the fireplace. On one side is a pic of Tillie's husband the day before he passed. The other side, as Tillie recalled while sharing b-fast with all the hikers, was one of the last eastern elk that lived before they were permanently gone forever.
The next day Tillie and Neville were heading off to a doctor in Pearisburg. She agreed to slack pack some of us by dropping off our packs at the Catholic Hostel in Pearisburg. She would take no money from me for doing this! I stayed at the Hostel by myself even after everyone else, including Tillie and Neville left. In the humid hot VA summer I push mowed that entire field all the way up the hillside exposing several fruit trees that Tillie and her late husband had planted, but had long since been so overgrown so that not Tillie or anyone could get to the fruit trees anymore. I also saw where an old stone bench had formerly been stacked but was in ruin. I rebuilt the stone bench and cleaned up the wooded debris around the fruit trees too. It felt so satisfying to have built up a sweat doing manual labor, when in essence I was on vacation, doing a hike! I packed what little stuff I was hiking with and headed off.
Later, when I talked with Neville she told me how Tillie was so amazed all that had been done. She told me that Tillie had not seen that field mowed in years. Neville told me that as her grandmother walked up that field she noticed the fruit trees, fruit forming, and the repaired bench. Tillie sat down on that stone bench with her grandaughter, looked at the fruit trees, and that mowed field and remembered a time when it was like that when her late husband was alive and a few elk still roamed the woods. Tillie started to reminesce and well up. Tillie told her grand daughter of a time long ago when her husband and her had sat on that bench he built under those fruit trees.
I feel eternally blessed that I was able to to do that for Tillie! I feel eternally blessed that not only was I able to do something outside myself for this family but that Tillie and Neville increased my level of honesty, respect, kindness, generosity, and awarness that I carry with me to this day! Tillie, her late husband, who I never met, and Neville(I don't recall meeting Neville's husband/boyfriend) made my AT hike a BETTER hike!
These are the kinds of things we can be part of on an AT hike! These are the kind of memories we can leave with others or perhaps continue to experience with others, like Neville and Michael!
I think what 4shot was getting at is that the term donation throws a loop. That makes it sound like we'd appreciate your $10 donation or whatever it was whereas other places have nightly rate.
I stayed in the shared room inside the house. It was a great place w/great ice cream.
The only thing I didn't like was the hand holding before dinner. I found that hokey. I would stay again, for certain.
They will also be more than happy to make meals for vegan or vegetarian diets. The brownies in the fridge were great too.
Stayed on my thru in 2010, and would stay again in a heartbeat! Next time I'd try to get one of the rooms inside instead of out in the loft. The food was fabulous and Neville and Michael are fantastic.
I stayed there a few weeks ago and loved it. I had no problem understanding the expected costs of staying and eating. I will go back again this summer, as I want my husband to come and enjoy it. Climbing into the loft was a bit difficult for this 68 year old. I wish the opening was a little bigger. But I was comfortable and happy.