White Sulphur Springs 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 16:13 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
White Sulphur Springs Cabin is located on the northern shore of Bertha Bay, 65 miles northwest of Sitka, Alaska, on Chichagof Island within the West Chichagof-Yakobi Wilderness Area. The cabin makes an excellent base for experiencing and exploring this corner of Alaska. This is a remote site in a designated Wilderness area. The cabin can be accessed by boat only, weather permitting. Visitors are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
Recreation options include fishing, boating, hiking, photography and soaking in a natural warm springs pool. With easy terrain, many areas around the cabin are accessible to hikers. Lake Elfendahl and Lake Morris are only a 2-hour hike away. The Dry Pass Trail to Sea Level Slough can be difficult to follow and requires lower tide to cross the slough. The White Sulphur Springs Trail to Mirror Harbor is marked and easy to follow. The warm springs is about 50 feet from the cabin with no fee for use. However reserving this cabin does not include exclusive use of the warm springs. Cabin users must be prepared for warm springs visitors at any time. For information about fishing permits and seasons, visit the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website.
Facilities
The 12'x14' Pan Abode-style cabin accommodates six people, with two double plywood bunks and two single plywood bunks. Amenities include a wood stove for heat, a table with benches, cooking counter, broom, an axe or splitting maul and an outhouse toilet. The cabin does not include mattresses or cooking utensils. Visitors should bring sleeping bags and pads, a cooking stove, pots, pans, plates, utensils, food, toilet paper, garbage bags, a lantern, fire extinguisher and fire starter. Rain gear and boots are recommended. No good water source is available near the cabin. Click here for more cabin information and maps.
Natural Features
A forest of spruce and hemlock surrounds the cabin, which overlooks beautiful views of the North Pacific with breakers crashing on nearby rocky cliffs. White Sulphur Springs offers a natural warm springs frequented by many forest visitors. Brown bear frequent the 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
Boat access is possible with anchorage in Mirror Harbor, where 0.9-mile White Sulphur Springs Trail leads to the cabin; however, local knowledge is recommended before attempting anchorage there
Everything else this campground posts · 11
This cabin is in a designated Wilderness area; access by helicopter is illegal
No good water source near the cabin; all water must be treated or boiled before drinking
Bring extra water due to dehydrating effects of warm springs
All garbage and food must be packed out
Firewood may be in short supply
Camping within 200 feet of this cabin by anyone other than the cabin users is prohibited.
Natural warm springs bathhouse 50 feet from cabin is free; however, it is open to any forest visitor and is often used by fishermen, kayakers and campers; area around cabin can be noisy and disruptive to cabin users
For boat charters, contact the Sitka Convention and Visitors Bureau at 907-747-5940 or online
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
- “Amenities include a wood stove for heat, a table with benches, cooking counter, broom, an axe or splitting maul and an outhouse toilet.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Coast
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
Full this Saturdayread 16:13 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:13 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 16:13 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
| AREA WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS CABIN | SO1 | standard nonelectric | 381 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
Greentop CabinTongass National Forest · 6.1 mi
Goulding Lake CabinTongass National Forest · 6.8 mi
Moser Island CabinTongass National Forest · 24 mi
Eight Fathom Cabin25 mi
Suloia Lake CabinTongass National Forest · 35 mi
Piper Island Cabin40 miAccessible year round, weather permitting. Located 65 miles northwest of Sitka on Chichagof Island within the West Chichagof-Yakobi Wilderness Area. Boat access is possible with anchorage in Mirror Harbor, where 0.9-mile White Sulphur Springs Trail leads to the cabin; however, local knowledge is recommended before attempting anchorage there.
White Sulphur Springs Trail begins at Mirror Harbor and leads to the cabin. The trail is fairly level and parallels Bertha Bay.
Please consult local tide tables before departing for the cabin. For geographic features surrounding the cabin, refer to USGS topographic maps Sitka D-8 and D-7.
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
White Sulphur Springs 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 White Sulphur Springs Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Nicholas J. Begich III, I’m a constituent in Alaska, at-large. I tried to camp at White Sulphur Springs Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at White Sulphur Springs 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. White Sulphur Springs Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run White Sulphur Springs 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 White Sulphur Springs 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 White Sulphur Springs Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Dan Sullivan, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at White Sulphur Springs Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at White Sulphur Springs 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. White Sulphur Springs Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run White Sulphur Springs 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 White Sulphur Springs 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 White Sulphur Springs Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Dear Lisa Murkowski, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at White Sulphur Springs Cabin, Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at White Sulphur Springs 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. White Sulphur Springs Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run White Sulphur Springs 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 White Sulphur Springs Cabin (Tongass National Forest, Alaska) via campanac.com