Cabin Creek Cabin

Cabin Creek Cabin is a single room built in the 1930s. It stands at about 8,700 feet in a stand of mixed conifers, with Middle Fork Cabin Creek running nearby, and the meadow and forest around it give way to the peaks of the Madison Range. The Custer Gallatin National Forest rents it through the Hebgen Lake Ranger District at $65 a night to parties of no more than four. No road reaches it.

One room at 8,700 feet

Inside are a bunk bed platform, three cots, a table with chairs, and a wood stove. Recreation.gov counts sleeping room for three. The Forest Service leaves basic cookware and dishes, an axe, a shovel, a broom, a mop, and a stock pot for boiling water. There is no drinking water at the site, so renters carry their own, and water taken from nearby natural sources is to be treated before use. There is no electricity, no lantern, no bedding, and no firewood. Wood is scarce around the cabin and green trees are not to be cut, so renters haul their own. Visit Montana’s listing says this applies especially in the winter months. Candles are not allowed.

An outhouse with a vault toilet stands next to the cabin, and a hitching rail stands outside for stock. Hay and feed brought in must be certified weed-free, and riders are asked to scatter manure for the next party. The door opens with a combination lock, and the code arrives with the reservation confirmation. The Forest Service does not clean between visits. Each group cleans before it leaves and packs out its garbage, food, books, and personal belongings. A group may stay up to seven nights.

Grizzly bears frequent the area. Coolers, food, beverages, stock feed, garbage, and toiletries are kept inside the cabin, and district staff patrol the vicinity through the season to check compliance with the food storage order. Elk, gray wolves, bighorn sheep, deer, and moose also live here. The cabin opens in June and closes after March. It stays shut in spring because of weather and trail conditions.

Up Red Canyon on Trail 205

Recreation.gov sends hikers, horseback riders, and mountain bikers from U.S. Highway 287 up Forest Road 681, the Red Canyon Road, to the Red Canyon Trailhead. From there Trail 205 runs about five miles to the junction with the Cabin Creek Trail, and the cabin is one mile farther. Its notice reads: “This is a backcountry cabin, expect a 6-7 mile hike one way.”

The Forest Service’s own cabin page gives a second approach. It runs 10 miles north of West Yellowstone on Highway 191, then 6.5 miles up Teepee Creek Road to a trailhead, then about five miles in. ATVs and UTVs 50 inches wide or less may use Trail 151 from the Tepee Creek Trailhead from July 16 to December 1. They park at the junction with Trail 205, at the crest about a mile from the cabin, and their riders walk the rest. Motorcycles may ride the Red Canyon route from July 16 to October 14.

According to the Forest Service’s wildflower guide, the lower Red Canyon Trail is easy walking. Higher up it steepens and opens into subalpine meadows with whitebark pine. Twinflower, pyrola, and saxifrage grow in the shade, and harebell and green gentian grow in the sun. The flowers are best from early July to mid-August. Hikers and riders can also reach the Monument Mountain Unit of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness, which climbs to Monument Peak at 10,995 feet. In fall the country is hunted for big game.

Over snow from Fir Ridge

In winter the cabin sits beside the Big Sky Snowmobile Trail. Recreation.gov directs riders about 9.5 miles north of West Yellowstone on Highway 191 to a pullout at Fir Ridge Cemetery. The trail starts on the north side of the highway and, by that site’s figure, runs about 11 miles to the cabin. The Forest Service and Visit Montana put the distance at about 12 miles over snow. Recreation.gov calls the trail challenging backcountry snowmobiling. The Forest Service says ski access is difficult and not recommended.

The Red Canyon fault, 1959

The Gallatin National Forest was established in 1899. The Civilian Conservation Corps built the cabin in the 1930s, and the pages record nothing more of its building.

The ground under the trail changed later. At 11:37 p.m. on August 17, 1959, the Hebgen and Red Canyon faults ruptured within seconds of each other, and three great blocks of earth rocked and dropped. The National Museum of Forest Service History gives the quake’s magnitude as 7.3 to 7.5. It opened cliffs between 9 and 20 feet high where none had stood, and waterfalls formed where the new scarps crossed streams. The two largest scarps, the Red Canyon and the Hebgen, each run more than 14 miles. The museum names the best example as the one “at Cabin Creek near the Hebgen Dam.”

Hebgen Lake rolled from shore to shore for more than 11 hours and sent surges over its dam. Downstream, 80 million tons of rock fell into the Madison River Canyon, burying a Forest Service campground and damming the river into Earthquake Lake. Twenty-eight people died, and 19 of them are most likely still under the slide. On Highway 287 one family fled a motel in their pajamas and drove full speed off a 6-foot scarp. The car rolled over, the family came out with minor injuries, and they walked back to the motel. The Forest Service opened the Earthquake Lake Visitor Center opposite the slide in 1967.

The lower Red Canyon Trail crosses one of those scarps within a third of a mile of the trailhead, beside a small patch of the sensitive plant large-leaved balsamroot.