Antone Cabin

Antone Cabin stands in an open meadow at the edge of a thick forest, on the grassy foothills at the southwestern end of the Snowcrest Range, 8,100 feet up. Forest Road 325 ends at its fence. Moose come into the meadow often, and bears are sometimes seen near the cabin. The Madison Ranger District of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest rents it from July 1 through December 31 at $45 a night. It is closed on Tuesdays for administrative purposes. Because the cabin sits at the end of the road, the Recreation.gov listing calls it “usually pretty quiet in the summer.”

One room, two bunks

The cabin is a single room of logs. It holds bunk beds with foam pads for two people, a table and two chairs, and a shelf and cupboard. A propane stove with an oven and two propane wall lights draw from a large tank outside, and a wood stove gives heat. The kit includes cooking pots, eating utensils, a broom and dust pan, a bucket, a shovel and an axe. A loft overhead is closed to the public for safety reasons. The outhouse stands about 100 feet southeast of the door.

Firewood is stacked near the outside fence, though the Forest Service does not guarantee the supply. A spring just west of the cabin runs through a PVC pipe into a horse trough, as the photographer Terry Musgrove found it. The spring is unreliable and often dry by late summer, and its water must be filtered, treated or boiled. Renters bring their own drinking water, sleeping bags, matches, food, toilet paper and garbage bags. A large horse pasture and a smaller holding corral are open to renters, but stock stays outside the fence around the cabin. There is no cleaning service. Before leaving, the renter cleans the room and splits a fresh supply of wood and kindling, away from the porch.

Blacktail Road to the end of 325

The Forest Service directions begin at the only stoplight in downtown Dillon, on Montana Street, and wind through town streets to Blacktail Road. From there it is about 40 miles to the signed Antone Station turnoff. Road 325 runs on to the cabin, 5.5 miles by the Forest Service count and about 5 by Recreation.gov’s. Both roads are gravel and are maintained about once a year. Musgrove described the trip from the freeway as 40 miles “on unplowed Forest Service roads.” Snow can fall at any time. Four-wheel drive or chains may be needed from October through December. A second route comes in through the Centennial Valley.

Road 325 is closed to all wheeled motor vehicles from April 1 to June 30. Snowmobiles are allowed on it after December 1, and in a hard winter a renter may have to travel 6 to 40 miles by snowmobile to reach the cabin. The cabin lies in proposed wilderness, so snowmobiles and bicycles may not leave the road. The gate takes the same combination as the cabin lock. Cell phone coverage is extremely limited.

Elk country on the Snowcrest

Together with the nearby Gravelly Range, the Snowcrest is, in Recreation.gov’s words, “one of Montana’s most popular hunting grounds.” The two ranges hold nearly 10,000 elk and a growing population of grizzly bears. Hunting season is the cabin’s busiest time. Musgrove counted deer, elk, moose, black bear, “lots of coyotes” and grizzlies, and wrote that they roam “with little fear of humans.” A forest-wide order requires food, garbage and animal carcasses to be stored out of reach of wildlife from March 1 through December 1.

Antone Peak, about two miles from the cabin, is a popular day hike and climb that Recreation.gov calls “more challenging than one might expect.” The Snowcrest Trail runs 40 miles along the whole range, long enough for a horseback trip, a long backpack, or several day trips. Blacktail Deer Creek and the seasonal mountain streams hold brook and cutthroat trout. Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge lies about 20 miles to the southeast.

A guard station from 1929

The cabin was built in 1929 to serve as a guard station. Today hunters and backpackers use it most. Musgrove, a retired government TV video producer from Oregon City, Oregon, set out to photograph Forest Service rentals. He stayed at Antone Station for five nights in October 2017 with his dog, Woody. The rent was then $30 a night, and the corral cost $10 a day. The wood stove was out of commission during his stay, “a big bummer in October,” but there was plenty of firewood. He kept a campfire going just outside the door, burning wood from beetle-damaged trees. He called the place “a small, lonely, isolated log cabin” and wrote of it plainly: “This rental has seen better days. The whole cabin is leaning to its west side.”