West Swan Lake 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 14:57 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
West Swan Lake Cabin is in a very remote area on the Kenai Peninsula of south-central Alaska. Swan Lake is just steps away from the cabin, with great fishing and boating opportunities. There is no trail access to this cabin. Cross country travel in this area is very difficult. This cabin is reachable only by float plane during the ice free seasons, and can be reached by snowmobile, hiking or skiing when the lake is frozen and travel is safe. Visitors are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
Visitors enjoy boating and fishing for rainbow trout, lake trout, Dolly Varden and sockeye salmon in Swan Lake. A rowboat with oars is provided at the cabin. Fishing equipment is not provided and permits are required to fish or hunt in the state; click here for Alaska Department of Fish & Game regulations. In season, visitors hunt for moose, black and brown bears, Dall sheep, mountain goats, caribou and wolves in the surrounding forest.
Facilities
The log cabin has bunk space for six and a maximum occupancy of eight people. It is equipped with counter space, table, benches and a wood stove for heat. A splitting maul and handsaw are available. An outhouse is also provided. There is no electricity, potable water, mattresses, bedding, cooking utensils or cut firewood at the cabin. Visitors should bring water, food, sleeping bags and pads, a cook stove and cooking gear. Water taken from the lakes and streams should be treated or boiled before consumption. All garbage and food must be packed out.
Natural Features
The cabin is located north of Sterling Highway on the northwest corner of Swan Lake. It is set in an open grove of cottonwood trees, with views of nearby mountains. 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.
What the agency tells you
This is WEST Swan Lake Cabin located in the Kenai Mountains, not Swan Lake Cabin on the Resurrection Pass Trail or Swan Lake Cabin near Petersburg.
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
Everything else this campground posts · 12
In fall, winter and early spring, the cabin may be inaccessible due to frozen lake surface (floatplanes cannot land); contact the Seward Ranger District office for information prior to making reservations during these periods
There is no source of fresh water near the cabin; visitors must bring their own, or boil and treat water taken from the lakes or 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
Forest Order (10-04-00-14-47) that limits occupying/renting a public use rental cabin for more than seven consecutive days by any group or person
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.
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 also provided.”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…firewood at the cabin. Visitors should bring water, food, sleeping bags and pads, a cook stove and…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
- Stay limit
- 7 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
Full this Saturdayread 14:57 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 14:57 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 14:57 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
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 WEST SWAN LAKE CABIN | S10 | cabin nonelectric | 93 ft | $60 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Swan Lake Cabin SewardChugach National Forest · 2.0 mi
Juneau Lake CabinChugach National Forest · 4.0 mi
Romig CabinChugach National Forest · 4.3 mi
Devils Pass CabinChugach National Forest · 4.6 mi
Trout Lake CabinChugach National Forest · 5.7 mi
East Creek CabinChugach National Forest · 6.7 miAccess is via floatplane (30 minutes from Moose Pass, 15 minutes from Cooper Landing). For winter travel, the cabin is 2 miles northwest of the Resurrection Pass Trail alongside Swan Lake. In fall, winter and early spring, the cabin may be inaccessible due to frozen lake surface (floatplanes cannot land). Please contact the Seward Ranger District office for information prior to making reservations during these periods.
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 open to over-snow motorized vehicles from Dec. 1 to April 30 every other winter season, beginning with the winter of 2007-2008. It is closed to motorized vehicles every other winter season beginning with the 2008-2009 winter season.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cooper Landing, AK
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 41°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 16°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 Julys are colder than the July 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
West Swan Lake 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 West Swan Lake Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska
Dear Nicholas J. Begich III, I’m a constituent in Alaska, at-large. I tried to camp at West Swan Lake Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at West Swan Lake 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. West Swan Lake Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run West Swan Lake 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 West Swan Lake 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 West Swan Lake Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska
Dear Dan Sullivan, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at West Swan Lake Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at West Swan Lake 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. West Swan Lake Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run West Swan Lake 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 West Swan Lake 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 West Swan Lake Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska
Dear Lisa Murkowski, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at West Swan Lake Cabin, Chugach National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at West Swan Lake 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. West Swan Lake Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run West Swan Lake 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 West Swan Lake Cabin (Chugach National Forest, Alaska) via campanac.com