Moser Island 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 16:24 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Moser Island Cabin sits on the northern shore of Moser Island in upper Hoonah Sound, 48 miles north of Sitka, Alaska. The wood cabin, built in 1991 by volunteers from Sitka, is available year-round and makes an excellent base for experiencing and exploring this corner of Alaska. This is a remote site. The cabin can be accessed only by floatplane or boat, weather permitting. From Sitka, it's a 30-minute plane ride or a two-hour boat ride. Visitors are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
Beachcombing, seal watching, hunting and fishing are popular activities at Moser Island Cabin. Shrimp fishing is available south and east of the island, and crabbing is available in nearby bays. Local rivers can be fished for Dolly Varden and pink and chum salmon. Deer, bear and waterfowl hunting is allowed on Chichagof Island, accessible from the cabin during low tide. For information about fishing and hunting permits and seasons, visit the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website.
Facilities
The wood, 12' by 14' Pan abode-style cabin can accommodate up to six people with two double and two single plywood bunks. A wood stove for heat, a table with benches, a cooking counter, cupboard, broom and an axe or splitting maul are provided. An outhouse toilet is close to the cabin. Mattresses and cooking utensils are not provided. Visitors should bring sleeping bags and pads, a cooking stove, pots, pans, plates, utensils, food, toilet paper, a lantern, garbage bags, a fire extinguisher and fire starter. Rain gear and boots are recommended. Water is available from a nearby stream but must be treated before using. It's recommended that guests bring their own water. A mooring buoy is available on first-come, first-served basis. Cabin reservations do not include exclusive use of the buoy. Mooring buoys are configured using a 4200-lb concrete block with 90 feet of 7/8th-inch stud link chain. Mariners are responsible for determining how suitable an anchoring system is for the size of their craft. Click here for more cabin information and maps.
Natural Features
Moser Island is a small island covered by a spruce and hemlock forest in upper Hoonah Sound. At low tide, the shoreline near the cabin leads to Chichagof Island. Wildlife, including deer, brown bear and waterfowl, is abundant in the surrounding area.
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
Cabin not maintained during the winter; firewood may be scarce
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Treat or boil stream water before drinking
All garbage and food must be packed out
For boat or air charters, contact the Sitka Convention and Visitors Bureau at 907-747-5940 or www.Sitka.org
Learn more about the Tongass 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.
The invasive European Green Crab (EGC) has been found in southern Southeast Alaska and is suspected to be in more locations on the Tongass National Forest. Please actively look for and report EGC to help map the distribution and contribute to management.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “An outhouse toilet is close to the cabin.”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “It's recommended that guests bring their own water.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek, Beach
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:24 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:24 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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 14
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 · 4
recreation.gov availability, read 16:24 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| AREA MOSER ISLAND CABIN | S20 | standard nonelectric | 3,763 ft |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Goulding Lake CabinTongass National Forest · 18 mi
Suloia Lake CabinTongass National Forest · 20 mi
Eight Fathom Cabin21 mi
Piper Island Cabin22 mi
Appleton Cove CabinTongass National Forest · 23 mi
White Sulphur Springs CabinTongass National Forest · 24 miAccessible year round, weather permitting. Located 48 air miles north of Sitka, within Hoonah Sound on the north end of Moser Island, north of Peril Strait. Access from Sitka is 30 minutes by floatplane, or 2 hours by boat. For geographic features surrounding the cabin, refer to USGS topographic map Sitka C-6.
Please consult local tide tables before departing for the cabin.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Sitka, AK
Typical weather
Typical October night 39°F, day 48°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
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
Moser Island 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 Moser Island Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Nicholas J. Begich III, I’m a constituent in Alaska, at-large. I tried to camp at Moser Island Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Moser Island 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Moser Island Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Moser Island 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 Moser Island Cabin (Tongass 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 Moser Island Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Dan Sullivan, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at Moser Island Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Moser Island 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Moser Island Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Moser Island 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 Moser Island Cabin (Tongass 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 Moser Island Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Lisa Murkowski, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at Moser Island Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Moser Island 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Moser Island Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Moser Island 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 Moser Island Cabin (Tongass National Forest, Alaska) via campanac.com