Cazier Cabin

Cazier Cabin stands in an open space with a few tall trees, at 7,600 feet in the valley of the Greys River near Corral Creek. A pine forest sweeps up the nearby slopes, and the view runs up the Corral Creek drainage. A three-pole wood timber fence circles the station. The Civilian Conservation Corps put up the building in 1933 for the Forest Service. Today the Bridger-Teton National Forest rents it to the public year-round, one party at a time, through recreation.gov.

Bunks, propane, and a wood stove

The guard station has two rooms. Eight people sleep on four bunkbeds with mattresses, and five more may camp just outside. A wood stove gives the heat. The kitchen has a sink, a propane range top, a propane refrigerator, and a dining table and chairs. There are no pots or cooking utensils. There is no electricity and no cell coverage. The Forest Service notes solar lights.

According to recreation.gov, drinking water, a flush toilet, and showers are available from about mid-June to Labor Day. In winter an outdoor vault toilet serves, no water is available, and guests bring their own for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. The Forest Service’s own listing for the cabin also gives a vault toilet and states that potable water is not available at the site. The cabin is pack-it-in, pack-it-out. Its firewood is for burning at this cabin only. A public stock corral stands available for horses, and riders bring their own water bucket. Bears frequent the area.

Greys River Road and the Tri-Basin Divide

The Forest Service counts the Greys River among the streams of the region named for early trappers. Recreation.gov sends visitors in from the north. From Afton they take Highway 89 north about 31 miles to Alpine, then turn south onto Greys River Road, Forest Road 10138, for about 46 miles of low-speed gravel. The cabin sits on the west side of the road. Alpine is also the nearest town for groceries, and recreation.gov calls the cabin “rather remote.”

The Forest Service gives a southern approach. It runs south from Afton on US-89 for about 14 miles, then left onto Smiths Fork Road, FS-10072, for 23.5 miles to the Tri-Basin Divide. There it turns north on Greys River LaBarge Road and runs about 12 miles to the turnoff. By the agency’s reckoning that is about 50 miles from Afton, 1 hour and 16 minutes. Spring and fall access depends on weather and the road. In winter the only way in is by snowmobile on a groomed trail.

The Corral Creek Trail starts close to the cabin. It reaches Corral Creek Lake and the Swift, Dry, and Cottonwood Creek drainages on the west side of the range. Hikers, mountain bikers, and riders use it, and off-road vehicles keep to designated routes. The Greys River holds trout. In winter, cross-country skiing begins at the front door.

From Corral Creek to Cazier

The site went into federal hands on November 13, 1906, when 127 acres were withdrawn for an administrative site. In 1912 the Forest Service built the first guard station there, a one-room log cabin ten feet by twelve. It stood about a quarter mile north of the present station, on the east side of the Greys River road. The station was then called Corral Creek. In the Forest Service’s usage, guard stations of this kind housed Forest Guards and rangers through the summer.

By 1933 the old cabin was believed to be rotting and unsafe, and the Forest Service sold it. That year the CCC built the office and outhouse on the new site. A garage followed in 1942, and whether the CCC built it is not known. A March 2003 Forest Service evaluation by architectural historian Jim Bailey recommended the station as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places as a contiguous district. It cited Criteria A and C, with periods of significance of 1933 and 1942.

In 1984 Corral Creek was renamed for Sam Cazier, an Afton native. The forest’s ranger roll lists Samuel Edward Cazier as Big Piney District ranger from 1928 to 1940, on the Sherman District in 1928, and on the Fremont District from 1945 to 1950. He was the first ranger on the old Wyoming National Forest to use an automobile for patrol. That forest became the Bridger in 1941 and joined the Teton in 1973. Part of the three-pole timber fence that still circles the station is his work.