Appalachian Trail Shelter and Campsite Reopen with Bear-Resistant Food Storage Boxes

How do you get 355-pound bear-resistant food storage boxes into remote Appalachian Trail shelters? Ask the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club!

Two months after the closure of the Lambert’s Meadow Shelter and Campsite near Tinker Cliffs, volunteers from the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club reopened the sites for overnight use after installing certified bear-resistant storage boxes. The sites were closed on May 11 due to the repeated presence of sows and cubs who showed no fear of humans and were adept at removing even properly bagged food from trees.

“It was an incredible cooperative effort,” said Therese Witcher, who maintains the RATC’s 16 shelters along with her husband Homer. Witcher cited the active involvement of staff from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, including Ridgerunner Matt Allenbaugh, who patrols “Virginia’s Triple Crown, (McAfee Knob, Dragon’s Tooth and Tinker Cliffs).

The National Park Service monitored the situation from the beginning, and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries provided expertise and generous funding to help address the issue. Funding from the DGIF and RATC volunteer David Horst made it possible for RATC to order and install steel bear-resistant boxes at four sites – Catawba Shelter, Campbell Shelter, Lambert’s Meadow Shelter and Lambert’s Meadow Campsite.

“If people use the bear boxes for overnight storage and leave nothing behind, both the hikers and the bears will be safer,” Allenbaugh said.

CAMPBELL SHELTER CREW (pictured above, from left): Gary Bible, Jordan Frantz, Taylor Arthur, Ryan Wilson, Tim Gillow, Therese Witcher, and Homer Witcher