mystery cabin on the BMT

[tagg]

I did a short 40 mile section of the BMT this weekend from Towee Creek to the Tellico River, and on one of the nights we were shooting for a campsite in Tate Gap, described in Sgt. Rock's guidebook as follows: "sheltered campsite with water is 0.3 E on old road." When we got there, we found this:

b4.15 tate gap5.jpg

Although the cabin is still under construction (there is an electric saw on the porch, tools, lumber, etc.), there were also personal effects obvious in the house through the windows. It certainly appeared to be private property, but there weren't any no trespassing or private property signs anywhere. Nobody was there and it was clearly going to rain, so we set up our hammocks in the trees nearby and spent the night there. We did sit on the covered porch to eat dinner that night and to pack up our gear the following morning, and took advantage of the great water source behind the cabin, but otherwise didn't disturb anything and practiced general LNT principles. Two questions:

1. Does anyone know what this place is? The guidebook mentioned the clearing and the water source, but the cabin is obviously a new addition. There are several posts obviously used for hitching horses and a makeshift corral in the woods nearby, so we thought that perhaps it's some sort of riding club cabin??

2. If you were in the same situation, would you have stayed there? We would have left if it was earlier in the day or if we had seen any signs to indicate that it was now private property, but there were none on site or in the guidebook. It was admittedly nice to have the covered porch available during poor weather, but I never felt completely comfortable because I wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong.

[Tennessee Viking]

Don't know exact details.

But from past posts on Tate Gap, there used to be a farmstead there.

Topo maps show a small patch of private property on the NC side.

[ScareBear]

If I came home to find you parked on my front porch...

Did you think they were poaching on government land? No? Then clearly you were on private property. Posted or not. Respect other people's property...don't give hikers a bad name...

[Dogwood]

It's my new under construction Tiny House project.

Agree with SB. It's someone's house. Unless invited uh no don't sleep on the porch. They have horses too?

[daddytwosticks]

I know very little about the BMT. However, I do know that there is a 45 acre privately held track of land surrounded by US Forest Service that butts up against the Tennessee/NC border on the NC side (Cherokee County, NC). Knowing this is part of what I do for a living. Thank you for the heads-up.

[Tipi Walter]

Send my backpacking friend Will Skelton a message on Facebook as we emailed each other about this cabin and he mentioned something about it being a private national forest in-holding (big bummer) and accessed on the old logging cut thru Tate Gap. He talked to the forest service about it and can give you some info.

https://www.facebook.com/will.skelton.10

[tagg]

It's my new under construction Tiny House project.

Agree with SB. It's someone's house. Unless invited uh no don't sleep on the porch. They have horses too?

I didn't sleep on the porch, I slept in the trees away from the house - just sat on the porch to get out of the rain while I ate and packed up. But I get the point, I guess we probably should have just moved on. There had obviously been horses there recently, but none when we were there.

[Tipi Walter]

Trail 117 is the main horse route in the area---it junctions the BMT just south of Tate Gap.

[gpburdelljr]

If I came across something like that I would assume it was either a private inholding, or built illegally by the type of people I definitely don't want to meet. Either way, I wouldn't get anywhere near the structure.