... spend at least one night in a cabin.
Windfall Lake Cabin, Juneau, Alaska
Imagine spending the night in a cozy, windowed cabin, surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery ever, all for only around $35 a night. Perhaps in part because Juneau is a temperate rainforest and tent camping can sometimes be a pretty soggy affair, the Forest Service and the Department of Natural Resources each have built and managed an abundance of these cabins throughout Juneau, Southeast Alaska, and beyond. In Southeast Alaska alone, there are 119 cabins, only six at which Scotty and I have stayed.
Signing at the trailhead for Eagle Glacier Trail
Concentrating on slippery planking
The difficulty in getting to each cabin ranges from being dropped off by boat (or floatplane if you so desire), to hiking an average of 4-5 miles one way. Campers carry all the usual supplies except for a tent and the amount of water depends on whether can be filtered from lakes or streams (less possible when everything is frozen). It’s also necessary to bring a sleeping pad, as the wooden cabin bunks don't include padding.
Inside Eagle Glacier Cabin
Scotty and I on the porch of Windfall Lake Cabin- November 2008
Washing dishes at Eagle Glacier Lake
Climbing over logs and bounding up Stairmaster-like steps en-route to the cabins gets to be quite the workout, especially with a pack on. Once we reach our destination, it’s time to strip down and get the propane heater working. This is one of the best parts of cabin camping- the heat, usually supplied by a flown-in tank, just for this purpose. In other cases, such as the Denver Caboose, cabin-goers are advised to bring a can of kerosene or stove oil for the tank.
At Cowee Meadow Cabin on a rare zero-degree December day
After a difficult January hike to John Muir Cabin
After the heat has begun to do its trick, it feels great to walk around in your skivvies (or less), admiring the magnificence of the scenery outside. We’ve watched trumpet swans glide across a glacial lake at dawn, steam rising from the water, surprised porcupines scooting up tree trunks, and admired billions of stars in 180-degree sky. And when bedtime means sitting next to a woodstove, reading aloud or talking with your partner, it’s impossible to forget this is what many of our ancestors were doing every night not so long ago. These are the times that make me want to get rid of the television completely.
Building a fire at Windfall Lake Cabin
Scotty also likes to bring a gun for target practice and- just in case- bear protection (we’re not the only ones who do this). I wasn’t a big fan at first; my family was not into hunting and I’ve always viewed guns as something to be avoided. But Scotty persisted and I have to say there’s nothing like a game of “shoot-the-can” to get your blood going in the morning.
As for cabins rentals, you can see a few of my favorites here, here and here. An article for the New York Times also gives the highlights (the author beat me to it!), including the Denver Caboose cabin near Skagway that we rented for two nights in April 2010.
Walkway en-route to Eagle Glacier
You can book up to six months out and many people do, as evidenced by some cabins with not a single Saturday available. But sometimes people cancel and other times you can just get lucky, even without planning ahead. The busiest time is summer when people from out-of-state base their vacations on these cabins staying for a week or so at a time (we’ve read their excited accounts of their trips in the cabin log books). We don’t mind the summer being booked up though, because that’s when we go island camping.
If you ever get a chance to visit this beautiful place I call home, definitely make cabin camping part of your trip- you won’t regret it.
Cranberries in a bog on the Eagle Glacier Trail
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