Dale Clemens Cabin
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:12 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 14 notices
In the agency’s own words
Dale Clemens Cabin is a rustic cabin in south-central Alaska. It offers great views of the surrounding mountain peaks, and Resurrection Bay and Seward in the distance. Visitors enjoy hunting and exploring, as well as fishing in nearby Lost Lake. The cabin can be accessed by hiking, biking, skiing and snowmobile. It is open year-round, though conditions may impact travel plans. Visitors are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
Visitors enjoy fishing for rainbow trout in Lost Lake. Hunting is available in season for moose, black and brown bears, wolves, mountain goats and ptarmigan. Hiking, cross country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling are also popular activities.
Facilities
The two-story cabin has two entrances via stairways at ground level. A wooden deck with seating overlooks the surrounding peaks. The cabin is oufitted with a Nordic oil drip stove for heat. Cabin users are responsible for supplying his/her own kerosene/number one fuel oil at a rate of one gallon per day June-August and two gallons per day the rest of the year. Contact the Seward Ranger District for more information. Heating system will be changed to Nordic oil stove on September 11, 2019. Users are responsible for supplying kerosene/number one fuel oil after September 11, 2019. Inside the cabin are wooden bunks and a loft that will sleep up to eight people. Counterspace,table,benches, and an oil drip heater are provided. An outhouse is located outside the cabin. There is no electricity, potable water, mattresses, bedding or cooking utensils. Visitors should bring kerosene/heating oil at a rate of one gallon per day June-August and two gallons per day the rest of the year, sleeping bags and pads, a cook stove, cooking gear and food. Water from the lakes or streams should be treated or boiled before consumption.
Natural Features
The cabin is located west of Seward Highway at an elevation of about 1,750 feet. The cabin sits just above tree line, amid mountain meadows and groves of hemlock and spruce trees, as well as grasses and abundant wildflowers. Winter snow can linger into July and the cabin is susceptible to heavy fog and rain in the summer, as well as whiteout conditions in the winter. A variety of wildlife makes its home in the area. For more information on access and regulations pertaining to this cabin, trail conditions, safety precautions and outdoor safety and ethics , please contact the Seward Ranger District.
Nearby Attractions
Resurrection Peak and Mt. Ascension tower above the area, at 4,700 and 5,700 feet respectively.
What the agency tells you
This facility is located in an extremely remote and wild area; before making a reservation, become aware of bear, water, and weather safety (including cold).
Recreating in Alaska can present both obvious and hidden dangers; please be aware of your surroundings and be prepared for extended stays due to occasionally poor weather.
Bikes and horses are not recommended on the access trail, due to numerous rock steps, crossings and water bars, narrow boardwalks (12 inches wide) and fragile alpine vegetation.
Everything else this campground posts · 11
There is no source of fresh water near the cabin; guests must bring their own, or boil or treat water taken from lakes and streams.
Use of this cabin by a commercial operator, such as an outfitter or guide, is not allowed.
All garbage and food must be packed out.
It is unlawful to use a public recreation cabin without a valid cabin reservation.
Occupying a Public Recreation cabin with more than eight individuals per cabin for each permitted day is prohibited.
Camping, pitching tents, or staying overnight within 300 feet of any public recreation use cabin is prohibited unless you have a valid cabin reservation.
It is prohibited to hitch, tether, or hobble any saddle or pack animal including dog teams, within 200 feet of an established trail, water source, or developed recreation site, including Forest Service recreation cabins.
Camping and/ or occupying any one Public Recreation Use Cabin for a period longer than seven consecutive days by any person or group including but not limited to family members, members of the same household, and members of the same camping party within a 30 day period, and three consecutive days May 15 to August 31.
Learn more about Chugach National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by purchasing firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Cabin users are responsible for supplying their own kerosene/fuel oil at a rate of one gallon per night.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “An outhouse is located outside the cabin.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Coast, Meadow
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
Full this Saturdayread 16:12 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Tue, Oct 20. read 16:12 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 19
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:12 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA DALE CLEMENS CABIN | S18 | cabin nonelectric | 1,879 ft | $50 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Exit Glacier CampgroundKenai Fjords National Park · 7.1 miPrimrose CampgroundChugach National Forest · 10 mi
Ptarmigan CreekChugach National Forest · 15 mi
Trail River CabinChugach National Forest · 15 mi
Trail RiverChugach National Forest · 15 mi
Lower Paradise Lake CabinChugach National Forest · 16 miFrom milepost 5 on Seward Highway turn onto Scott Way and follow signs to the Lost Lake Trailhead. In the summer, hike 4.5 miles to the cabin. In the winter, ski or snowmobile 2.5 miles to the cabin. From milepost 17 on the Seward Highway, at Primrose Campground and Trailhead, hike 12.6 miles to the cabin on a steep and rugged trail .
Winter travelers need to be able to evaluate avalanche and over-ice travel conditions. For more current travel conditions call the district office. The trail is closed to horse/pack stock from April 1 to June 30, and is closed to motor vehicles between April 30 and Nov. 30.
Refer to USGS topographical maps Seward A7 and B7. Maps are available online or by calling the Seward Ranger District at 907-288-3178. For more trail information see the following links:
Lost Lake Trail
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Bear Creek, AK
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Dale Clemens Cabin is in Alaska’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Nick Begich (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyNicholas J. Begich IIIU.S. Representative · Alaska, at-large
- Your senator, on the same appropriationDan SullivanU.S. Senator · Alaska
- Your senator, on the same appropriationLisa MurkowskiU.S. Senator · Alaska
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Dale Clemens Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska
Dear Nicholas J. Begich III, I’m a constituent in Alaska, at-large. I tried to camp at Dale Clemens Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Dale Clemens Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Dale Clemens Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Dale Clemens Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Dale Clemens Cabin (Chugach National Forest, Alaska) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Dale Clemens Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska
Dear Dan Sullivan, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at Dale Clemens Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Dale Clemens Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Dale Clemens Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Dale Clemens Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Dale Clemens Cabin (Chugach National Forest, Alaska) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Dale Clemens Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska
Dear Lisa Murkowski, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at Dale Clemens Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Dale Clemens Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Dale Clemens Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Dale Clemens Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Dale Clemens Cabin (Chugach National Forest, Alaska) via campanac.com