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By Monty Tayloe
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Mike Evans, a seasonal Ranger for Shenandoah National Park, known on the Appalachian Trail as “Grateful Greenpeace Guy,” has been running a hostel called Terrapin Station out of his Chester Gap home for the last four years.
The hostel commonly stays open from mid-April to mid - July. For $15 a person, he lets Appalachian Trail Thru-hikers (hikers following the AT from its beginnings in Georgia to its end in Maine) sleep in bunk beds in his basement. He sells them ice cream and microwave pizza, lets them take showers, and gives them lifts into Front Royal. Tterrapin Station is proclaimed in AT guidebooks, and lauded on the Internet.
It’s also been operating illegally the entire time it’s existed.
When County Administrator John McCarthy was informed by some of Evans’ neighbors of the existence of Terrapin Station earlier this year, he ordered Evans to cease operations. Two similar letters and a letter from County Attorney Peter Luke later, Evans decided to begin the process required to operate his hostel legally. He came before the Rappahannock County Planning Commission at their August session for that purpose.
“It’s a good opportunity for hikers to rest and rejuvenate before continuing on to more difficult parts of the trail,” explained Evans.
In order for a private residence to be used to commercially house transients (the term Rappahannock County’s ordinance uses for non permanent residents), the operator must obtain a special use permit from the Board of Zoning appeals. The use must be approved by
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