Backcountry Cabins and Huts
Add to Del.icio.usWhen climbing into a tent with three of your smelliest buddies is the last thing on your to-do list
by Chris SolomonAs much fun as roughing it in the backcountry is, swapping a snug cabin for that bug-swarmed campground can be a welcome change of pace. Hundreds of retired fire lookouts, ranger huts and other hideaways pepper the nation's public lands. Many don't require a backpacking trek, or can even be reached by car. Most have cinematic views, a few amenities like a woodstove, and hiking, fishing, kayaking, or biking right out the front door. Best of all, they can usually be rented for a song. Try these favorites and you may never look at your tent the same way again.
Fall Mountain Lookout, OR
Location is Everything: When its eyelid-like shutters
are propped opened for the summer, this drive-to aerie atop 6,000-foot
Fall Mountain in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest, 15 miles south
of John Day and 170 miles east of Bend, stares unblinkingly into the south
flanks of the Strawberry Mountains – a compact, heavily forested,
and rocky-capped range of 8,000-foot peaks dominated by its 9,038-foot
namesake.
The Digs: Swaying on its 25-foot stilts, the wooden fire
lookout, built in 1933, a wild (if insulated) perch for witnessing Eastern
Washington’s skull-clutching summer thunderstorms. The single, 14x14-foot
room, reachable by a long stairway, has a futon bed that sleeps two –
plus rare electricity that powers a small fridge, stove, heater and lights
(the sole benefit of sharing a peak with a microwave tower). Bring your
own water. Cabin rental is $25 per night per party.
Where to Play: Options other than vivid stargazing and
storm-watching are thin atop Fall Mountain but a half-hour’s drive
delivers you to the renowned smallmouth bass fishery on the John Day,
a Wild and Scenic River, or hiking the 100-odd miles of trails in the
Strawberry Mountain Wilderness. From the Strawberry Basin trailhead, an
easy, 2.8-mile hike leads to handsome alpine lakes of the 69,300-acre
wilderness.
Info: (541) 575-2110, www.fs.fed.us/r6/malheur/rec/fall_mountain_lookout.htm
Bring a sleeping
bag when staying in a primitive cabin...you never know what else has
been sleeping on that mattress.
Dale Clemens Memorial Cabin, AK
Location is Everything: At the end of a 4.5-mile hike or mountain-bike
ride from the Lost Lake trailhead outside Seward, on the Kenai Peninsula,
the hemlocks yield to wildflower meadows and reveal this gem of Alaska’s
280-cabin system. From its 1,800-foot elevation the cabin peers down to
Resurrection Bay and Seward; across the bay the ragged, glaciated peaks
of Chugach National Forest spit out their teeth. Keep a spic-and-span
camp here: grizzlies, moose and wolves are your neighbors.
The Digs: The 14x18-foot plank cabin – which stands
atop eight-foot stilts to keep it usable during snowy Alaskan winters
– was completed 1992 and outfitted with a propane stove, four plywood
bunks, a small loft and a front deck that fronts a “Heidi”
scene of alpine lupine and paintbrush in mid-summer. Come August nearby
salmonberry bushes ripen then, to enliven drab oatmeal. Cabin rental is
$45 per night per party.
Where to Play: Leave a second car at the Primrose Trailhead,
by Kenai Lake, and make this cabin the first night’s stop on the
Lost Lake Traverse – a 15-mile, one-way backpack among marmots and
glacial tarns that many consider the most stunning trek on the peninsula.
Day-trippers from the cabin can wave a fly rod for Lost Lake’s rainbow
trout, or clamber up to the summit of neighboring 5,710-foot Mt. Ascension
to poach the mountain goats’ views of the Gulf of Alaska.
Info: (907) 224-3374, www.fs.fed.us/r10/chugach/cabin_web_page/seward_cabins/dale_clemens.html
Reservations: (877) 444-6777 or www.reserveusa.com
Seward, Alaska: kayak
touring Heaven.
Doublehead Cabin, NH
Location is Everything: A vigorous but short (1.8-mile)
hike up the so-called Ski Trail through hardwoods and spruce-fir forest
leads to the cabin atop 3,053-foot North Doublehead Mountain in White
Mountain National Forest near North Conway, with a nearby overlook for
extended gawking at lake-speckled Maine.
The Digs: The log cabin, built in 1934 by the CCC in
traditional New England style and renovated in 1993, is Spartan, with
little more than eight wooden bunks in four rooms, a common area with
benches and a wood stove and a doorway framing the breathtaking view of
the Northeast’s highest peak, 6,288-foot Mt. Washington. Bring your
own water and kindling. Cabin rental is $20 per night per party.
Where to Play: From atop North Doublehead, hike down
to the col between the summits via the Old Trail and then huff up the
New Trail to the top of neighboring 2,939-foot South Doublehead and more
great views of the Presidential Range – a 4.5-mile round trip.
Info: (603) 447-5448, www.fs.fed.us/r9/white/other_things/cabins/cabins.html
Cayo Costa Island, FL
Location is Everything: Fantasy Island has nothing on seven-mile-long
Cayo Costa State Island Preserve, a barrier island of mangrove swamps
and deserted beaches five miles off Florida’s west coast, just above
Naples. Access is by private boat or daily ferry. No electricity. No telephones.
No dwarves in white suits.
The Digs: Twelve primitive cabins and one yurt peek out
at the Gulf of Mexico from behind the dunes. They’re appointed only
with six bunks, pluse picnic tables inside and outside. Drinking water,
restrooms and cold showers are provided. Cabin rental is $23 per night
per party.
Where to Play: Hike with feral pigs along the island’s
mellow, 6-mile trail network, rent a sea kayak at the island for a day
in the surf, beachcomb before a flaming sunset, or arrange beforehand
with a guide to take you fishing in nearby Boca Grande Pass, "tarpon
capital of the world."
Info: Cabin rental is $30 per night per party. The ferry costs $26.50
per person, round-trip.
Info: (941) 964-0375, www.floridastateparks.org/cayocosta.
Reservations: (800) 326-3521, www.reserveamerica.com
Cayo Costa State Park, Florida. Stoves
and cookware
are handy to bring along when staying in remote huts, cabins, and yurts.
Crescent Moon Cabin, Sedona, AZ
Location is Everything: The juniper-stubbled redrock
country around Sedona has been the backdrop for untold Hollywood westerns
and still a leading devourer of Kodak among Southwest tourists and New
Age pilgrims. The drive-to Crescent Moon Ranch, one of the area’s
first white homesteads and now owned by Coconino National Forest, is located
less than 10 miles southwest of town, with sycamore-lined Oak Creek winds
past the property and the vermilion capstone of Cathedral Rock leans overhead.
The Digs: Only a cabin to a Rockefeller, this 1950s-era,
sandstone-and-stucco ranchouse (rumored to have been designed by a student
of Frank Lloyd Wright) has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, two kitchens,
electricity, microwave, an outdoor grill, running water – and an
enclosed porch, so the odd mosquito won’t interrupt your gin-and-tonic
while you watch the falling sun paint Cathedral Rock’s butte. The
cabin, acquired in 1990, sleeps 10 people; you’ll need them to make
the $200 per night rate a bargain.
Where to Play: Fish for trout in the riffles of Oak Creek,
cool off with a plunge into the picturesque swimming hole at the national
forest’s Red Rock Crossing, then wander with your Nikon along the
seven-mile roundtrip Templeton Trail around the north end of Cathedral
Rock. Re-charge your aura before dinner at one of Sedona’s woo-woo
“power vortices.”
Info: (928) 443-8281, www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/recreation/other-rec/recreation_room_with_a_view/index.shtml
Reservations: (877) 444-6777 or www.reserveusa.com.
Cathedral Rock outside Sedona, Arizona.