Description
The 16-by-20 cabin is equipped with wooden bunks that sleep up to six guests.
Facilities
The cabin is equipped with a table, benches, wood stove for heat, saw, axe, splitting maul, a rainwater catchment barrel and an outdoor pit toilet.
The cabin does not have running water, electricity or cut firewood.
Capacity
6 people
Area
McKinley Lake
Location
The cabin is situated on McKinley Lake and is surrounded by a dense spruce and hemlock forest. Steep mountainous terrain encircles the area.
Access
Access to the cabin is by hiking, float plane or canoe.
Terrain
McKinley Trail provides access to both the McKinley Trail Cabin, located just 100 yards from the trailhead, and this cabin, which is about 2.25 miles from the trailhead. The trail meets the shoreline of the lake at its southern lobe and at the cove at its upper end.
Special Features
Hiking approximately a quarter-mile beyond the cabin, visitors will find remnants of the Lucky Strike Mine. Rusting machinery, pipes and a collapsed tunnel are the most obvious evidence of the mine site.
At approximately 1.25 miles from the McKinley Trail trailhead is the junction for the Pipeline Lakes Trail, which wanders through muskeg meadows and spruce-hemlock forests below steep mountainsides. In the spring, brown bears can be seen grazing on the new grass on the south-facing slopes.
Anglers will find cutthroat trout near inlet creeks and gravel shoals near the cabin, and more healthy coho and sockeye at the mouth of the lake outlet. Many anglers concentrate on the Dolly Varden that follow the sockeye to eat their eggs. Walking up the Pipeline Lakes Trail, anglers will discover a series of five small lakes with resident cutthroat trout and some Dolly Varden. Using dry flies is the best bet in these lakes.
Hunters can take advantage of a long hunting season in the surrounding national forest. Bear season occurs during spring and fall, while deer season begins in late summer and lasts through late fall.
Season of Use
Year-round
Managing Agency
Chugach National Forest
What To Bring
Visitors must bring their own supply of drinking water, firewood, food, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, a cook stove, matches, cooking gear, lanterns or flashlights, toilet paper, a first aid kit and garbage bags.
All trash and food must be packed out, and visitors are expected to clean the cabin before leaving.
Rowboat
No
Stove
Oil & Wood
USGS Topo Map
N/A
