Most shelters along the Appalachian Trail are exactly what you'd expect: three walls, a sloped roof, and not much else. The Secret Shelter in New Jersey is the opposite. It has electricity. It has running water. And right now, its future is uncertain.
The shelter was built by James Macklin Murray - trail name Backpack Jim - who finished the entire AT in 1989 and wanted to give something back. Rather than copy the standard rustic model, he put the shelter on his own property and fitted it out with comforts no other AT shelter offers. Hikers have been using it for decades.
Murray died on 5 November 2025, and the property's future has since been up in the air. The Trust for Public Land is working to acquire it so the shelter can keep operating. There were reports on the FarOut app just days before a recent visit of a chained gate and a keep-out sign at the entrance. But a thru-hiker writing for The Trek found the driveway clear, the door unlocked, the logbook, maps and hiker box all in place - everything apparently running as normal. Logbook entries showed plenty of familiar trail names passing through. Another southbound hiker, Rebar, headed in to claim the whole place for himself that night.
The hiker's day leading up to the shelter makes a good route snapshot for anyone planning this stretch. From Culvers Gap, the trail climbs Sunrise Mountain, a long wooded ridge with a pavilion at the summit that's perfectly aimed at sunrise (though the adjacent parking lot doesn't open until 8am, well after first light - a detail sunrise photographers should know). The active Culver Fire Tower en route is off-limits. Further north sits High Point State Park HQ, a genuinely useful stop with restrooms, a water refill station, a gift shop and rangers on hand.
The New Jersey High Point itself, at 1,803 feet the state's summit, is marked by a 1930 obelisk built as a war memorial and observation tower. In theory you can climb its 291 steps to the top; in practice the writer found it locked despite posted hours of 3:30pm. Worth noting for the wind alone - conditions that day were compared to New Hampshire's Whites, brutal on all four sides of the tower.
North of the High Point, the trail mellows into flat valley walking, tracing the New York border through pastures toward Carnegie Road - a welcome change after ankle-twisting rocky sections further south. One caution from the overnight camp: a stream that ran clear earlier in the day turned grey by evening, likely farm runoff, so water sources here deserve a second look before you filter.
Why care about one hut in the woods? Because the Secret Shelter represents a rare, privately funded act of generosity on a trail that runs on volunteer goodwill, and if the land transfer doesn't happen, hikers lose one of the most comfortable overnight spots on the entire route. If you're hiking the New Jersey section soon, check current reports before counting on it - and sign the trail log if you make it there.
Story originally reported by The Trek.
