View Full Version : Baseball Bat Shelters
Frozen Achilles
03-04-2013, 14:52
I was trying to compile a list of the shelters which one time or another had the baseball bat flooring. Please add others if you are early shelter knowledgeable.
Poplar Ridge: still has the baseball bat flooring
Rainbow Springs: still has the baseball bat flooring
Hurd Brook: still has the baseball bat flooring
Cooper Brook: used to have
Chairback: flat flooring has been laid over the baseball bats
Joe's Hole: used to and shelter is gone
Jerome Brook: used to and shelter is gone
Spaulding: old shelter used to
Trebor66
03-04-2013, 14:59
Sorry I can't help, but I'm curious what "baseball bat flooring" is.
Frozen Achilles
03-04-2013, 15:09
Long, round pieces of wood laid side by side that look like baseball bats that leave gaps and make for horribly uncomfortable sleeping.
WingedMonkey
03-04-2013, 15:16
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?13232-How-many-baseball-shelters-left-in-Maine
fiddlehead
03-04-2013, 15:41
Anyone remember when the shelters just had dirt floors?
We used to hike up to Ney's shelter (about 2 miles north of where Eagles Nest shelter near Port Clinton now stands)
When it rained, there was a mud puddle in the middle.
The older boys would make us sleep in the middle.
That's a long time ago though. (early 60's)
I was up there last year looking for remains and could find none although I remember almost exactly where they were (these were 2 double shelters)
Anyway, what about that one in PA that they didn't tear down because Earl Schaeffer lived nearby and didn't like the newer style shelters.
SCRUB HIKER
03-04-2013, 16:13
I just spent a lot of time looking for the quote from Earl Shaffer that's in the AT Museum in Pine Grove Furnace SP, but I couldn't find it. It's him enumerating his reasons why shelters shouldn't have floors, and the type of unsavory people that shelter floors would attract: there are some very innocuous groups listed, like "picnickers" and "weekenders." Does anyone have the exact quote?
on_the_GOEZ
03-04-2013, 16:29
I believe "baseball bat" shelters were originally used thusly: every couple of days, or whenever a hiker would show up, one would cut white pine boughs and cover the floor to enhance smell and provide some insulation. Pine boughs obviously not cut any longer..
There is a gap left between the outside ledge and the actual sleeping platform in many of these shelters to keep out varmits (cant clear the gap). Hence the reason so many of them are short and difficult for those tallies :)
Source: from the journal kept at the shelter just north of saddleback in Maine, published by the long-time ridgerunner/caretaker (drawing blank on both names..)
Feral Bill
03-04-2013, 16:35
Anyone remember when the shelters just had dirt floors?
We used to hike up to Ney's shelter (about 2 miles north of where Eagles Nest shelter near Port Clinton now stands)
When it rained, there was a mud puddle in the middle.
The older boys would make us sleep in the middle.
That's a long time ago though. (early 60's)
I was up there last year looking for remains and could find none although I remember almost exactly where they were (these were 2 double shelters)
Anyway, what about that one in PA that they didn't tear down because Earl Schaeffer lived nearby and didn't like the newer style shelters. I sure remember one time at West Mountain, when a friend and I arrived to find it mostly flooded. As it turns out two people can sleep under a 6x8 tarp in the rain and live.
Trebor66
03-04-2013, 17:02
Long, round pieces of wood laid side by side that look like baseball bats that leave gaps and make for horribly uncomfortable sleeping.
Sounds uncomfortable, thanks for the explanation.
SCRUB HIKER
03-04-2013, 17:28
Source: from the journal kept at the shelter just north of saddleback in Maine, published by the long-time ridgerunner/caretaker (drawing blank on both names..)
It's Spaulding Mtn. Shelter, but I can't remember the caretaker's name. I thought that FAQ/journal was one of the coolest things on the entire AT; I spent an hour and a half lunch break there all by myself reading it cover to cover.
I thought I remembered that shelter having a baseball bat floor from when I was there in 2011, but now I'm doubting myself because of the OP.
on_the_GOEZ
03-04-2013, 18:16
I thought I remembered that shelter having a baseball bat floor from when I was there in 2011, but now I'm doubting myself because of the OP.
Unless it was been rebuilt in the last 18 months, which is entirely possible, it is a baseball bat shelter. Newish roof when I was there, lots of beaver chew marks.
I read the entire thing front to back as well. Another reason Maine is my favorite AT state..and twooper cribbage :)
SouthMark
03-04-2013, 19:04
I was there in 2009 and it was baseball bat shelter. In the FAQ/Journal it said that the longtime caretaker and his sister cut, peeled and installed the floor.
SouthMark
03-04-2013, 19:10
Actually I'm wrong, the Spaulding shelter had plank floor in 2009. It was the Poplar Ridge shelter with the baseball bat floor. 1st pic is Spaulding and 2nd pic is Poplar Ridge.
2015720158
Poplar Ridge shelter is a baseball bat floor... :)
peakbagger
03-05-2013, 08:19
Dave Field is the long term maintainer of Poplar Ridge Shelter and author or the popular register whihc expalins why they do the things they do in Maine. I expect as long as he maintains the shlter it will retain the floor.
A thermarest works fine on those floors.
I still cut cedar or spruce branches whenever I sleep on baseball bat floors. I figure that it was designed for just that and if the club wanted me to stop cutting branches they would fix the floor.