Jack Creek Crew Quarters

The lights and the well pump at Jack Creek Crew Quarters run on solar panels, and the Forest Service asks guests not to bring extra appliances, a microwave for instance. Heat comes from propane. The house is a two-story log building in a clearing at 8,500 feet, ringed by lodgepole pine, aspen and mixed conifer. The Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests rent it as a group cabin from mid-June into autumn. The forest’s own page gives the season as ending in mid-October; its Overview and the Recreation.gov listing say late October.

A log house in a clearing

There are five bedrooms with single and bunk beds on mattresses, enough for fifteen. Both floors have bathrooms with showers and flush toilets. The kitchen is doubled: two propane ranges, refrigerators and double sinks, with dishes, cookware and basic utensils on the shelves. Outside are picnic tables and a large charcoal grill. Guests bring the rest themselves: food, sleeping bags, pillows, towels, dish soap, matches, toilet paper and garbage bags, and an extra light for emergencies. The listings disagree on trash. One section says collection is provided. Another says in capitals that it is not and tells guests to pack out what they bring.

The house is a no-smoking building. Tents, campers and trailers may not be set up beside it. Saddle and pack animals are kept out of the administrative area it shares with the Jack Creek Guard Station. A host for the cabin and for Jack Creek Campground, about a mile off, lives on site. Guests are expected to clean the house and lock it when they leave. Before arriving they telephone the Brush Creek/Hayden Ranger District office in Saratoga for the combination and key, during weekday office hours, since cell coverage at the cabin is unreliable.

Elk, deer, bear and moose live in the surrounding forest. The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail runs to the west. The area offers stream fishing, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding and hunting.

Forest Road 452

From Saratoga the way runs west on Carbon County Road 500 about 16 miles, then 3 miles on Road 405 to the forest boundary, where the road becomes Forest Road 452. The Forest Service puts the cabins about 6 miles farther on. Recreation.gov counts 6.5 miles to the campground and another mile and a half past it to the entrance, on the left.

The other approach comes up from Encampment, west on State Highway 70 for about 23 miles, then north on Forest Roads 801 and 830 to a final mile on 452. Highway 70 is the Battle Highway. A forest visitor guide says it crosses the Continental Divide and the Sierra Madre to Baggs. The 28 miles inside the National Forest open only from June through October, weather permitting. Along that stretch is the site of Battle, a mining town that flourished in the late 1890s and early 1900s, and the Edison Monument, a stone marker noting Thomas Edison’s fishing visit to Battle Lake. Aspen Alley draws drivers in autumn for the turning leaves. The Recreation.gov listing calls the route the 57-mile Battle Pass Scenic Byway, “named for the famous battle between Indians and Fur Trappers in 1841.”

Work center and barrack

The reservation system still carries the building’s older names: Jack Creek Work Center and Jack Creek Work Center Barrack. By 2002 it had become part of the forest’s cabin-rental program under the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, and its rental sites had been added to the National Reservation System. The Forest Service now describes it as “newly furnished.” The forest’s page lists an overnight rate of $180 alongside a notice that the site was approved for a fee change. The current figure is $225 a night, for up to fourteen nights.