Range View Cabin

Range View Cabin is a one-room stone rental in Shenandoah’s North District, near Matthews Arm. It sleeps up to eight in four double-deck bunk beds and has a wood stove, covered porch, outdoor fireplace and picnic area. Reserve through the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) before coming; the cabin stays locked, and passersby should leave it alone when someone has booked it.

The usual approach is 0.9 miles downhill from the Piney River Ranger Station parking lot, with a 0.1-mile connector to the Appalachian Trail. Bring food and pack out your trash; this is a self-catering cabin with basic cooking equipment, not a food stop. A pit privy is a few hundred feet away along a trail. A spring box is also nearby, but its treatment status is unclear, so carry known safe drinking water. When Skyline Drive is inaccessible in winter, the approach can lengthen to about six miles from Piney Branch Trailhead on VA-600; check park road conditions before setting out.

PATC members began building the cabin in 1932. The National Park Service credits Myron Avery, Frank Schairer, Al Jackman and Otis Gates with overseeing it, and stone mason Charlie Sisk’s signature—“SISK 1933”—is scratched into one of the stones. The name refers to the view that once opened from here; forest has since grown back over much of it. When leaves drop in autumn and winter, the southward view opens again and can include Old Rag.