Young Lake (North) 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 16:15 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
North Young Lake Cabin offers guests recreation, relaxation and a unique wilderness lodging experience on the northern tip of Admiralty Island in the Tongass National Forest. The remote site offers a scenic setting for hiking, fishing, boating, berry picking and wildlife viewing, all within the vicinity of the cabin. Young Lake North Cabin is one of two cabins on the lake. The other is the South Young Lake Cabin. Access to the cabin is float plane only. Visitors are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety and must bring several of their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
Anglers enjoy Young Lake for catching cutthroat trout, dolly varden and coho salmon. Visitors are welcome to use the skiff with oars available at the cabin and visitors are responsible for bringing and using personal floatation devices. The lake is normally ice-free from mid May through November. Several primitive trails extend from the cabin into the forest. The Admiralty Cove-Young Lake trailhead is at the cabin's doorstep. The trail is 4.5 miles departing from the cabin and ending at Admiralty cabin and cove. It is a relatively flat trail and follows the creek at each end of the trail. The round-trip hike can be fairly strenuous when conditions are rainy and wet.
Facilities
The cabin is a primitive, pre-cut cedar log cabin in pan- abode style, furnished with wooden bunkbeds without mattresses that sleep up to six guests. The cabin is equipped with a table, benches, an oil stove for heat and an outside toilet. Other amenities include cooking counters, shelves, cupboard space and a broom. The cabin does not have running water or electricity, and visitors must bring their own food, water, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, cook stoves, matches, cooking gear/utensils, light source, toilet paper, first aid kit and garbage bags. Guests should bring #1 heating oil (kerosene) to fuel the stove. The stove will burn half a gallon in eight hours at the lowest setting, and up to 1.2 gallons during eight hours at the highest setting. A flash light is handy for looking into the burn chamber when lighting the stove. Matches or a lighter are needed to light a small piece of paper to drop in to the burn chamber when lighting the stove. Detailed directions with photos on how to light the stove are provided in the cabin.
Natural Features
The cabin is situated under a canopy of old growth forest at an elevation of 320 feet, set back 50 feet from the north end of Young Lake. The Kootznoowoo Wilderness encompasses nearly a million acres. Dense spruce and hemlock forests, glacier-fed streams, lakes and muskeg openings define the landscape. Peaks rise from the horizon in the distance. Wildlife in the area abounds. Sitka black-tailed deer stay well hidden in the dense forest and bald eagles are easily found in treetops along most beaches. Bears frequent the area near the cabin and trails, particularly during salmon runs July through August. Learn more about bear safety in the Tongass National Forest.
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 this facility; visitors must bring their own for drinking, cooking, and cleaning
Everything else this campground posts · 11
Bring initial supply of water; boil surface water five minutes before use
All garbage and food must be packed out
Before digging for clams, become familiar with paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP ) and current regulations for size and quantity limits. Cases of PSP from eating razor clams are relatively rare, but they have been reported in Alaska
The lake is on a flight path and has substantial overhead plane traffic
Click here for a map of cabins on Admiralty Island.
The person holding the reservation must be 18, and must be a member of party using the cabin
Use of this cabin by a commercial operator, such as an outfitter or guide, is prohibited
No discounts for Golden Age and Golden Passports for Alaska cabin rentals
Learn more 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.
To ensure users have capability of using the skiffs, it is recommended that they bring their own 8 or 9 foot oars. Oars are provided once on an annual maintenance trip but are not guaranteed to still be on site or in working order.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “The cabin is equipped with a table, benches, an oil stove for heat and an outside toilet.”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…cupboard space and a broom. The cabin does not have running water or electricity, and visitors must bring their own…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:15 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 16:15 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 16:15 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 YOUNG LAKE (NORTH) CABIN | A14 | cabin nonelectric | 62 ft | $35 |
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
Young Lake (South) CabinAdmiralty Island National Monument · 1.2 mi
Admiralty Cove CabinAdmiralty Island National Monument · 3.8 mi
Dan Moller CabinTongass National Forest · 9.0 mi
Kathleen Lake CabinAdmiralty Island National Monument · 17 mi
Auk Village Campground18 miAuk Village CampgroundTongass National Forest · 19 miAccess to the cabin is by float plane. It is about a 20-minute flight from Juneau. This cabin is in a designated Wilderness area, and access by helicopter is illegal. In fall, winter and early spring the cabin may be inaccessible due to frozen lake surface (float planes cannot land). The lake is normally ice-free from mid-May through November. Refer to USGS topographic map Juneau A-2. Inclement weather conditions may cause an extension of your trip during any time of the year and winter access can be difficult due to snow and ice conditions. Visitors should bring extra supplies to last 2-5 days. Please contact the Admiralty Island National Monument at 907-586-8800 prior to arrival for more detailed information about safety precautions.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Juneau, AK
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 47°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 24°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
Young Lake (North) 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 Young Lake (North) Cabin, Admiralty Island National Monument, Alaska
Dear Nicholas J. Begich III, I’m a constituent in Alaska, at-large. I tried to camp at Young Lake (North) Cabin, Admiralty Island National Monument, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Young Lake (North) 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. Young Lake (North) Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Young Lake (North) 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 Young Lake (North) Cabin (Admiralty Island National Monument, 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 Young Lake (North) Cabin, Admiralty Island National Monument, Alaska
Dear Dan Sullivan, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at Young Lake (North) Cabin, Admiralty Island National Monument, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Young Lake (North) 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. Young Lake (North) Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Young Lake (North) 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 Young Lake (North) Cabin (Admiralty Island National Monument, 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 Young Lake (North) Cabin, Admiralty Island National Monument, Alaska
Dear Lisa Murkowski, I’m a constituent in Alaska. I tried to camp at Young Lake (North) Cabin, Admiralty Island National Monument, Alaska, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Young Lake (North) 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. Young Lake (North) Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Young Lake (North) 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 Young Lake (North) Cabin (Admiralty Island National Monument, Alaska) via campanac.com