Juneau\u2019s U.S. Forest Service roadside cabins set rental records this year.<\/p>\n
For the fiscal year between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 20, 2015, \u201cwe posted the highest use we\u2019ve seen,\u201d said Juneau Ranger District Recreation Manager Ed Grossman.<\/p>\n
Grossman attributes the increases both to cabin renovations and maintenance and improvements on the trails leading to the cabins.<\/p>\n
Increases ranged between two days to 32 more days rented than previous years. <\/p>\n
Dan Moller is the most rented cabin in the Tongass, Grossman said, at 278 nights. That wasn\u2019t quite a record for itself, however \u2014 a few years ago, it was rented for 280 nights. <\/p>\n
Windfall Lake Cabin was \u201ca close second,\u201d rented 274 nights. Usually, it\u2019s the most rented cabin in the Tongass. Grossman attributes Dan Moller\u2019s increase to its recent rebuild. <\/p>\n
John Muir Cabin set a new record for itself, up 25 days and rented 263 nights. <\/p>\n
The Forest Service has been working on improvements on Auke Nu Trail, which leads to the cabin. The agency has material cached and hopes to lay it down for further improvements this year, Grossman said. <\/p>\n
John Muir Cabin also saw renovations a few years ago, so that the upper story can be closed off (to keep heat downstairs) or opened up to accommodate bigger groups of people, Grossman said. And of course, Spaulding Meadows also offers Nordic skiing.<\/p>\n
Peterson Lake Cabin broke 200 nights rented for the first time last fiscal year, rented for 218 nights. The trail leading to the cabin has been seeing lots of improvements; it was rented 27 more nights last year than the year before.<\/p>\n
Eagle Glacier Cabin was rented 214 nights, which Grossman said he also believes is a record. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe five cabins you can hike in from our road system all exceed 200 nights, and several approach 300 nights, and that\u2019s pretty darn marvelous,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s basically three quarters occupancy. Anyone that\u2019s tried to get one knows that it\u2019s difficult, especially on a holiday weekend, and the state cabins, as I understand it, are booked as solid as these. If there\u2019s a successful program around, it\u2019s our rental cabins for sure.\u201d <\/p>\n
Off the road system, the highest use cabin is Berners Bay Cabin, rented for 176 nights, two more than the previous year. The least used cabin in the Juneau Ranger District is East Turner Lake, which is accessible only by float plane, and therefore not when the lake is frozen, at 24 nights. Though it\u2019s remote, it\u2019s \u201ca great spot,\u201d with catch and release cutthroat Grossman describes as trophy size. West Turner Lake, six miles away, is accessible by boat and a \u00be mile hike, so sees three times that use.<\/p>\n
The Forest Service has proposed increasing its cabin rental fees in the state to better cover maintenance and other costs. Read more about that here http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/outdoors\/2015-11-06\/forest-service-proposes-raised-cabin-fees. <\/p>\n
To read an article about the Turner Lake cabins, go here: http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/outdoors\/2013-05-10\/cabin-lake. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact Juneau Empire Outdoors Editor Mary Catharine Martin at maryc.martin@juneauempire.com. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Juneau\u2019s U.S. Forest Service roadside cabins set rental records this year. For the fiscal year between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 20, 2015, \u201cwe posted the highest use we\u2019ve seen,\u201d said Juneau Ranger District Recreation Manager Ed Grossman. Grossman attributes the increases both to cabin renovations and maintenance and improvements on the trails leading to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":26464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[149],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-26463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-outdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26463"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}