The Battle Ridge Cabin

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One thing that the west has that the east seems to be lacking is these remote mountain forest service cabins you can rent for yourself for a night or two at the cheap cheap price of thirty five dollars a night. I know some of you will argue that the AMC huts fill that purpose, but the NFS cabins are a bit different. For one, they are not manned by anyone and are owned in the public domain, not by an organization (AMC is the Appalachian Money, I mean Mountain Club). Most of these cabins were built in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corp during the depression. I had never really been in one of these cabins but I figured since my Thursday night was free and I didn't have to be in to work until late on Friday I'ld go and check one of these puppies out.

Speaking of puppies, I picked up my good four legged travel companion Gauss and met Shane and Justin at the trail head to do the leisurely half mile hike to the cabin. When we got there it was pretty pimped out crib (as the children of today would say)! Much better than anything I expected. There were two snowmen in the front yard battling the sun and gravity in futility, but bless them for putting up a fight. Isn't that the story of life though, eventually we are all going to go down, but we put up the biggest raucous and a great fight while we're here. Snowman philosophy, gotta love it.

When we entered this two room cabin we were greeted by an AWESOME monarch cast iron stove, a loaded wood bin, a gassed up lantern and a sweet bunk room. So we started the wood stove in the bunk room and got the monarch heated for dinner, which was sauteed chicken, green peppers, onions, and potatoes with tortillas.

The cabin held the heat alright, but the stove definitely needed some stoking through out the night which wasn't too hard as Gauss is a damned bed hog (if he is reading this I'm not apologizing because it's true). The following morning I cleaned up the cabin, restocked the wood pile and just sat on the porch reading the cabin journal. Then leisurely packed up my stuff and meandered back to my truck.

So if anyone gets the chance to get out to a forest service cabin I highly recommend it, especially if you are looking for a fully loaded and stocked cabin the Battle Ridge Cabin is the one for you (it's just past Big Sky). I'm going to hopefully check out Garnet Mountain Cabin sometime before I leave in May and I'll let you know how that one is as well.

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Photos

Tea Candle
I left like fifty of these at the cabin in case someone doesn't remember to bring fuel for the lantern.

Fighting the Good Fight
The vigilant snow warriors taking on their arch-nemesis the sun!

Her Royal Majesty
The Monarch cooking up a storm!

Just about to shuffle off his mortal coil.
Looks like the sun and gravity have this snowman licked. Keep fighting to the bitter end!

Home Sweet Home
Battle Ridge Cabin from the front.

Gauss on Patrol
Good Beagley Shepard mix.