Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2019 - 42

Feature .03

town, submerging themselves in the causes
and concerns of the little town of 300 while
continuing to serve the hikers.
Slowly but surely, as the number of hikers increased, the Harpers Ferry residents began to
realize the benefits of having the Appalachian
Trail in town. Today, Clark's outfitter isn't the
only hiker-related business. There are now two
hostels, which also offer basic foodstuff resupplies in order to compensate for the lack of a
grocery store.
"They were a little apprehensive in the beginning," says Clark of the community 20
years ago. "But there's power in numbers.
Now they see that it adds so much value to
the community to have visitors from all
walks of life. The trail is such a unique place
in this world because everyone is on common
ground. You can be just out of jail or you can
be a retired judge or a world leader and you're
still carrying the same stuff on your back,
you're still doing the same hike. It's just an
incredible place."

42 OUTDOOR RETAILER

/ Summer 2019

EDGE OF THE WOODS
OUTFITTERS

DELAWARE WATER GAP, PENNSYLVANIA

Mile 1,283.6
From the time Edge of the Woods Outfitters
co-owner Chuck Cooper was just a kid, he remembers seeing Appalachian Trail thru hikers
crossing Delaware Water Gap's Main Street.
They would pop out of the woods just three
blocks from his house, often stopping at the
Village Farmer and Bakery, which Cooper's parents opened in 1976. Cradled by the Kittatinny
Ridge at a notch formed by the Delaware River,
the borough of about 700 people has always catered to tourists who come to Delaware Water
Gap for its plentiful trails, vistas, and solitude.
Yet the community never had an outfitter,
which perplexed Cooper, who had spent a lot of
time in Colorado and had always used the local
outfitters as jumping-off points for adventures.
In 2007, he and his wife, Rachele, opened Edge
of the Woods Outfitters, initially catering to the

thru hikers but quickly morphing into a onestop shop for paddlers, cyclists, and backpackers. The outfitter now leads float trips and rents
bikes, but at its core is quality customer service
to the hikers who worked hard to get there.
Cooper says it's always been important to
the community that they leave a hospitable impression on the hikers. Each week during hiker
season, a hostel at the Church of the Mountain
provides a potluck free of charge for thru hikers.
In addition to resupplies, the outfitter will hold
packages for hikers and help arrange shuttles.
It's a business model based on building meaningful relationships first, and in Cooper's experience, that tends to come back full circle.
"The trail culture was always ingrained in
me growing up," says Cooper. "As a community we really support the A.T. experience. We
see a lot of [hikers] come back through who
say they took a zero here when they were on
trail. They'll bring their families and do a river trip because they have a warm memory of
Delaware Water Gap." O.R.

Nicholas A. Tonelli

WARM MEMORIES
Mount Tammany as seen
from the Appalachian
Trail at Mount Minsi,
Delaware Water Gap,
Pennsylvania.

Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2019

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