Well stocked cabin with oven&range, lights (solar battery) and firewood stove (stocked inside) at beautiful, remote yet accessible location - pack fresh water in and trash out. 12+" snow fell to make ski trip fun but interesting getting out mid-winter. Cheif Joe parking lot not plowed next day so be prepared for anything! Cabin is shared with xc skiers during day and we were grateful for their kindness, help and had good winter experience.

Good overall. However, no fire starter or kindling when we arrived at 1:30pm, so getting fire started was tricky. Temp about 50 degrees inside so not sure someone had stayed the night before. Solar lights were not working and D cell lanterns didn't throw much light in the basement to make kindling. Once fire started, cabin warmed quickly. Would advise to bring your own fire starter. We used the Propane lights which worked fine. New stove worked okay. Did not need to light burners with a match which was a big improvement from last year. We did get the broiler to work, but not the oven. Outhouse was pretty smelly, but not too unexpected for early March. IMHO, because the price has increased from $8 to $83 per night this season, the cleanliness of the cabin overall has gone down, e.g. sweeping, filling snow water, wiping tables, filling wood box, chopping kindling, etc. WORD Of WARNING- be prepared to dig your car out- make sure you have at least one shovel in your car. Our car was plowed in during the night, even tho we were parked on the "correct" side and there were only 2 cars in the parking lot. It took almost an hour for the 3 of us to dig it out; the worst problem was that the snow had been packed up against the side of the car, and was packed tightly into the wheels. Not a fun ending to our trip. But the weather cooperated, and was beautiful and sunny.

Awesome cabin, disappointed to see that the fee has gone up to $90/night when it used to be free in the winter. Sad to see private corporations like rec.gov taking over the federal land use.

I was not able to stay at the cabin due to a bad windstorm that blocked the route to the cabin, and presented unsafe conditions for being in the woods.