Open April 1 - June 30
Closed May 15 - 20 for Trail Days
Get to know us!
Brett & Tina
After hiking the Appalachian Trail southbound in 2009, Tina (Chunky) had the dream of opening a hiker hostel. Brett, always up for an adventure and already dreaming of a farm, quickly bought into the idea and the property search began. It took us three years of earnest effort to find this place, and we often pinch each other to make sure it's really real.
We met in AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, and highly recommend the program to anyone 18-24 years old who wants to serve and get to know their country - the spouses and lifelong friendships are just an added bonus! After AmeriCorps, we moved to India together to rebuild houses that were destroyed in the 2004 tsunami. Tina later got a Master of Nonprofit Organizations and worked in the nonprofit sector both domestically and abroad for many years (until the AT fully ruined her life!!). Brett kept stacking up the degrees and is now a professor and academic administrator in civil engineering.
We are enthusiastic beekeepers and are happy to share the magical work of the honey bee through our other venture, Gather Ye Honey. Brett is the brains behind the beekeeping side of the operation, we do the harvesting and bottling together, and Tina creates the other products and handles the beesiness side of things.
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Tina holds most of the blame (or gets most of the credit) for the Quarter Way Inn shenanigans, and recently founded Bead by Bead Adventures, which turns your big adventures into beautiful necklaces that you can use to track your progress. Tina also dabbles in board game design, and you can buy your new favorite party game, Lord of the Things, right now.
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We knew this place was magical when we bought it and being able to share it with family, friends, and strangers alike has added such joy to our lives. We look forward to having you stay with us and experiencing the magic for yourself.
Meet the Staff
Hazelnut
Primary Responsibilities:
Announcing newcomers, following Tina, and being cute.
Herman
Primary Responsibilities:
Sleeping, bothering Hazelnut, and begging for belly rubs.
Cathy
Primary Responsibilities:
Staring, sitting in cardboard boxes, and creeping around.
Honeybees
To learn more about our bees and honey, visit www.gatheryehoney.com
Growing and Gathering
Our hostel is located in beautiful Rich Valley – so named for the rich soil found around here. The area used to be called Bear Garden and was a hunting ground for the Cherokee. The name of our closest town is Ceres, named after the Goddess of Agriculture. All that is to say this place is teeming with flora and fauna and we are trying our best to use our resources wisely. In addition to getting honey from our honeybees, we pick tons of black raspberries to make our famous jam use, and gather wild springtime herbs for our hiker-favorite Appalachian Herb Grits. If you're here at just the right time, you might get the chance to sample the fleeting delicacies of ramps, morels, asparagus, and garlic scapes. We even make use of invasive garlic mustard to spice things up. We have a handful of ancient apple trees and in the fall we press cider, make apple juice and sauce, and spend hours stirring our beloved apple butter. We also have more black walnuts than we know what to do with. Seriously… have you ever tried getting the walnut out of the shell?
We run on solar power.
In July of 2015, thru-hiker Yahtzee (one of our favorite guests ever) casually asks about our upcoming projects. I mention that we just bought a bunch of solar equipment, but didn’t really know where to start in getting it all set up. In true Trail Magic form, it turns out that Yahtzee is a pro. A real, live solar panel installation professional who just so happened to have installed 2,800 of the exact same panels we had stacked in the garage prior to getting on the AT. As things go in this magical AT community… a month later, Yahtzee, Dapper Dan (a random thru hiker Yahtzee had been hiking with), and Yahtzee’s colleagues from CDF Engineering convene at the Quarter Way Inn and installation begins. In three days, the entire system was up and ready for the switch to be flipped. Not only were these guys super smart, talented, and hard-working, they were a joy to be around. This same group of folks worked with The Nature Conservancy to bring renewable energy to the hard-to-reach Palmyra Atoll. Needless to say, they had lots of tales to tell around the campfire. We love our solar array and our battery back-up system. The power goes out here a lot, but we don’t even notice anymore! (And we are still really sorry about that one time a hiker was in the shower and the power went out and the water stopped coming. That won't happen again. We did all this for him.)