Tanis Mesa 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 16:08 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
This brand new red cedar panabode style cabin (completed August 2024) is tucked between Tanis Mesa and the Brabazon Mountain Range, offering year-round relaxation and recreation. With epic views of Mt Fairweather and several peaks in the Brabzon Range this cabin offers a unique opportunity for fly in remote Big Alaskan adventure. The cabin has a Nordic oil stove ( Kerosene / #1 stove oil only) renters are responsible for bringing there own fuel. Keep reading
There is a nice deck with both steps and a ramp, a redwood picnic table and a large "A"frame style shed perfect for keeping your game or additional gear out of the weather. The site can be accessed by wheeled plane or helicopter, depending on weather and ground conditions. The cabin is connected to the airstrip by a short 300 foot trail. Visitors are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities.
Recreation
Tanis Lake is 2 miles north of the cabin and can be hiked to the last quarter mile, which is dense brush. Hikers are rewarded with views of Fassett Glacier cascading into the lake's northeast end. The Brabazon Mountains offer opportunities for excellent mountain goat hunting. Moose and bear hunting is good around the cabin. This is also a world class site to just get away from it all and enjoy Big Alaskan Views and scenery Facilities The cabin is a 15x17-ft. panabode style cabin. It comes equipped with four single bunks. The cabin also has a table and benches, oil heater, broom, picnic table, fire ring and outhouse. A 12x12-ft. meat shed is located outside. Water, heating oil and electricity are not provided. Visitors must supply #1 stove oil for the heater, as well as their own drinking water. Other items to bring include sleeping bags, sleeping pads, food, a cooking stove, cookware, plates, utensils, lanterns or flashlights, toilet paper, garbage bags, a fire extinguisher and fire starter. Visitors are expected to pack out trash and clean the cabin before leaving. Click here for more cabin details.
Natural Features
The cabin sits on mostly flat terrain surrounded by blueberry bushes. Interspersed stands of cottonwood, alder and willow begin about half a mile from the cabin. Visitors can enjoy views of Tanis Mesa, which sits half a mile to the southwest. Tanis Mesa is a unique geologic feature that stands about 500 feet above the cabin. The peaks of the Brabazon Range are a mile to the northeast, with elevations of over 3,000 feet. Wildlife in the Brabazon Mountain Range includes moose, brown & black bear and mountain goats. Mt Fairweather can often bee seen to the south east on clear days.
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
Water is not available at the cabin; visitors must bring their own water supply
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Please pack out all trash and food
Users must bring their own #1 stove oil heating fuel for the stove
Click here for more information about 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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…oil for the heater, as well as their own drinking water. Other items to bring include sleeping bags,…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:08 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:08 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 · 15
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 16:08 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 TANIS MESA NORTH CABIN | Y06N | cabin nonelectric | 307 ft | $30 |
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
Alsek River CabinTongass National Forest · 3.8 mi
Italio River CabinTongass National Forest · 24 mi
Middle Dangerous River CabinTongass National Forest · 24 mi
Situk Lake CabinTongass National Forest · 41 mi
Raven CabinTongass National Forest · 42 mi
Eagle CabinTongass National Forest · 42 miThe cabin is located 50 miles southeast of Yakutat between Tanis Mesa and Brabazon Mountain Range. Access is by wheeled plane only via an 1,800-ft. airstrip at the cabin.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Yakutat, AK
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 49°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 22°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
Tanis Mesa 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 Tanis Mesa Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Nicholas J. Begich III, I’m a constituent in Alaska, at-large. I tried to camp at Tanis Mesa Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Tanis Mesa 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. Tanis Mesa Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Tanis Mesa 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 Tanis Mesa 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 Tanis Mesa Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Dan Sullivan, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at Tanis Mesa Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Tanis Mesa 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. Tanis Mesa Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Tanis Mesa 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 Tanis Mesa 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 Tanis Mesa Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Lisa Murkowski, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at Tanis Mesa Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Tanis Mesa 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. Tanis Mesa Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Tanis Mesa 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 Tanis Mesa Cabin (Tongass National Forest, Alaska) via campanac.com