How many baseball shelters left in Maine?

[lobster]

They don't make for a very good sleep!

[Moxie00]

The origional ides behind the baseball bat floor was that it was easier to find small round logs in the wilderness than to carry in flat boards. There were fewer hikers in the 1950's when the last one was built and the idea was that a hiker would cut pine or fir boughs to make his or her matress on the round "bats'. The matress would be left for the next hiker and when it dried out in a month or so it could be used as a fire starter and a new one cut. There are so many hikers today that every pine bough within a mile of each shelter would be cut if we still did it that way. When I have stayed in a baseball bat shelter I have either used my thermarest or my closed cel foam pad and never noticed a problem. Of course I am tired at the end of the day like most backpackers and sleep comes easy. I have hiked all of Maine but I don't want to even guess on how many are actually left because I have not visited every shelter but the ones I remember were far from the nearest road and in remota areas. I have never found them a problem but if you do the simple answer is sleep in your tent beside the shelter, then cook, get water and socalize at the shelter and poop in the shelters privy.

[Cookerhiker]

I remember 2 from my hike of all of Maine last summer. There may be others.

One was Poplar Ridge LT. After hiking over the Saddlebacks, I wasn't crazy about the bat floor so I tented behind the shelter. My second was in the 100 mile wilderness - I think it was Rainbow Stream but it may have been Cooper Brook - one of those 2. I slept OK probably because by then, I was pretty tired every night and could have slept on nails.

[weary]

.....When I have stayed in a baseball bat shelter I have either used my thermarest or my closed cel foam pad and never noticed a problem. ..... I have never found them a problem but if you do the simple answer is sleep in your tent beside the shelter, then cook, get water and socalize at the shelter and poop in the shelters privy.

Nor have I found them a problem. I think it's the appearance that prompts the periodic discussions, not the experience of actually sleeping on baseball bats. When topped with a thermarest or foam pad I find them as comfortable as any shelter bunk surface. And I have even less built in padding than Moxie!

Weary

[lobster]

What about Chairback or Hurd Brook?

[walkin' wally]

Three baseball bat shelters; Poplar Ridge, Rainbow Stream and Hurd Brook.
Cooper Brook is boards. FWIW there is a pic in my gallery of a little bit of the floor.
I never had a sleeping problem with any of the three shelters with just a three quarter therma-rest pad.

I know... " Shelters suck"