Member Profile: Sabra Staley
By Lee Howard
Sabra “Piper” Staley was an outdoor enthusiast of the first order– a conservationist, Girl Scout leader, and PATC member from 1975 until she passed away in 2022. She felt passionate about getting outside, and inspired others to do the same, starting a backpacking group with her former Senior Girl Scouts. They hiked club-maintained sections of the Appalachian Trail every spring and fall from 1960 to 1982. After twenty-two years of pitching tents and staying in shelters, she changed the format and began inviting the “Lite-Packers” to PATC cabins to ring in each new year.
The New Year’s tradition lasted for 15 years until Staley hired her son Stuart Miller to build a cabin for her in Madison County, VA. Cabin logbook entries from 1981 through 1996 chronicle the Lite-Packers’ adventures at the Hermitage, Little Orleans, and most significantly, Meadows. According to the club’s archives, she and her merry band of First Night revelers stayed at Meadows more than any other cabin, so it may be no coincidence that her cabin and Meadows are in close proximity. Both are located on the eastern front of Shenandoah National Park where the mountains flow into the piedmont.
Staley shared her love of the mountains with her family, too, and many of her grandchildren accompanied the Lite-Packers on their annual outings. In 1997 her cabin was finished by Miller and his construction crew, ushering in a new tradition. She continued to invite friends and family to the woods, but from then on she hosted them at the “Yowell Come” cabin. The namesake demonstrates her sense of humor, and is rooted in local geography as Staley’s five-acre wedge and cabin rest at the foot of Adam Yowell Mountain.
Another holiday tradition was to publish the
Staley Standard, an annual newsletter she wrote and distributed around Christmas. A few editions in the mid- to late-90s captured developments at Yowell Come woods as her vision for the cabin began to take shape and the structure was built. The
Standard also included feature articles from the Itty Bitty Kitty and Henry the black rat snake. Although Kitty had been on a number of trips to PATC cabins, at one point she unapologetically confessed, “I don’t do mouse work.” Henry’s dispatches suggested that he and Staley may have had a contentious relationship, especially when their timeshare occupancies overlapped.
Staley’s penchant for pastoral settings and open sky was rooted in her childhood, as her father was a professor of geography at the University of Maryland, College Park. Adventure and exploration were common threads in the fabric of her life from a childhood spent frolicking in rural Prince Georges County, and wasn’t limited to the land. As an adolescent she became an aviation buff, earning her private pilot’s license during a gap year after high school in the late 1940s. While an undergraduate at Cornell University, she was likely the only female licensed pilot in the Cornell Pilots Club, and her love of its Piper J-4 Cub Coupe airplane led to her nickname.
While Piper’s pioneering spirit supported pie-in-the-sky endeavors, her feet were planted firmly on the ground and she was very civically involved in her community. In the early 1970s she was appointed to the advisory board of the Gulf Branch Nature Center, which is Arlington County’s first facility dedicated to the study and conservation of nature. During this time she also fought to conserve natural areas in Arlington, and sat on the Save Open Spaces Committee. Civic engagement, conservation, and youth development were defining elements of her professional career and volunteerism, and in 1997 she retired from the Close Up Foundation, a nonprofit organization that partners with schools to deliver experiential programs that teach civics to young people.
Retirement allowed Staley to spend more time at Yowell Come. While new to her, the cabin was re-constructed of V-notched, American Chestnut logs from a cabin originally built in a nearby county dating back to the 1830s. Miller had bartered a roofing job in exchange for the logs, which he stored in his barn for ten years before negotiating to sell them to his mother in 1994. Though Miller led the construction team, Staley financed the entire build and was very involved in the effort. The 1994 edition of the
Standard reported that she attended a 2-day chainsaw workshop presented by the National Park Service, purchased a Stihl 023, and led a work party of 10 family and friends in July that year to clear space.
Piper hosted her kith and kin at the cabin for 25 years, and willed it to her son upon her passing. Unfortunately, Stuart Miller died less than a year after his mother. After the property was transferred to his widow Vera, she generously donated the land and cabin to PATC. As of May this year we are all beneficiaries of Sabra Staley’s legacy after the renamed Stoner Cabin entered the club’s inventory as a members-only rental. A dedication ceremony was held in late October, and an article about the event can be found in the
December edition of the PA.
If you stay at Stoner, you may notice reminders of Staley, such as the airplane-like weathervane soaring above the “toolshed” and Piper Aircraft Co. memorabilia hanging on a wall. There is also a booklet and plaque inside the cabin to acknowledge Miller and his crew for part in making Staley’s dreams come true. In her own words, this primitive cabin has “no water, no electricity . . . but the essentials are there . . . [and] as the coffee cup level goes down, the cup of contentment and dreams-fulfilled overflows.” For more information and to book,check out our website.